I wondered if wikipedia was keeping a break-neck pace with the developments of the 2010 Kentucky US Senate race — tied with the situation in Illinois as most dysfunctional item of political theater.<\/p>\n
The answer has gone from no to yes.\u00c2\u00a0 The opening states the situation in a broad outline —<\/p>\n
Incumbent<\/em> senator <\/em>Jim Bunning<\/em> was re-elected with 51% of the vote in 2004. He announced his intention to run again, and says he will need to raise $10 million for his reelection.[<\/span>1]<\/span><\/sup> In 2010, Bunning will be 79 years old. <\/em>National Republican Senatorial Committee<\/em> chairman <\/em>John Cornyn<\/em> is pressuring Bunning to retire due to fears he could lose a reelection bid.[<\/span>2]<\/span><\/sup> Despite this, Bunning has reiterated that he is running for reelection.<\/em>[3]<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0some more details are found within the “Possible Candidates” section:<\/p>\n Kentucky State Senate President<\/em> <\/em>David Williams<\/em> is likely to run for the seat whether or not Bunning does,[<\/span>6]<\/span><\/sup> as he is being actively recruited by the NRSC.[<\/span>7]<\/span><\/sup> This has resulted in a threat from Bunning to sue the NRSC and any potential Republican challengers,[<\/span>8]<\/span><\/sup>[<\/span>9]<\/span><\/sup> and a threat to resign, which would allow Democratic <\/em>Governor<\/em> <\/em>Steve Beshear<\/em> to appoint his replacement.[10]<\/em><\/p>\n A bit more background on why Jim Bunning is getting bum-rushed by his party: He’s Senile, and was increasingly erratic in that 2004 bid where he barely edged out Generic Unknown Democrat off of the coat-tails of a National Presidential campaign.<\/p>\n But the other two “Possible Candidates” are pretty interesting.\u00c2\u00a0 Tim Couch.\u00c2\u00a0 Is Kentucky ready to trade in a Hall of Fame Baseball Player for a failed NFL Quarterback?\u00c2\u00a0 The other “Possible Candidate”?<\/p>\n Apparently Ron Paul’s son lives in Kentucky.\u00c2\u00a0 And, like father like son,\u00c2\u00a0looks to be\u00c2\u00a0considering a career in politics (though only if Bunning doesn’t run).\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure that would bring out the Ron Paul Republican Supporters in droves.\u00c2\u00a0 Ron Paul’s son’s name?<\/p>\n Rand Paul. That’s a two-fer there.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only did Ron Paul name his son something that approximated his own name but he also put in the name of one of his ideological idols — Ayn Rand.<\/p>\n Is\u00c2\u00a0Rand Paul’s younger brother\u00c2\u00a0John Galt Ron?\u00c2\u00a0 Did Rand Paul’s conception take place with the Rush “2112” concept album blaring in the background, happening sometime in the seventh minute of hte opening clatter in “The Temples of Syrinx”, just before the belting out out\u00c2\u00a0of “We are the priests!\u00c2\u00a0 Of the Temples!\u00c2\u00a0 Of Syrinx!”<\/em><\/p>\n No, really.\u00c2\u00a0 Ron Paul named his son Rand Paul.<\/p>\n Sheesh.<\/p>\n In other news of the parties building up for the 2010 Senate campaign, historic Jeopardy conteststant Ken Jennings responds to having his name inserted into a poll<\/a>.<\/p>\n Apparently Utah is such a red state that all you have to do there is not register as a Republican (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure I declared no party affiliation last time I registered there) and national polls will start running your name up the flagpole. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even live in the state anymore and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still the second-most attractive candidate! […]<\/em><\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if Kos knows this, but it is true that I fielded some phone calls from Senate party leaders in 2005, wondering if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d want to run for Orrin Hatch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seat. Why not? You were on a game show! I thought this was a pretty sad sign for American democracy, but did think it would be funny if I ran. I could announce, not on Larry King or Meet the Press, but on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hate campaigning, but just try to stump me with questions about world capitals or the last books I read, Katie Couric!<\/em><\/p>\n I honestly can’t tell if Kennings is kidding about being contacted, but it wouldn’t be entirely surprising.\u00c2\u00a0 It appears that there are three Democrats in the state of Utah:\u00c2\u00a0 Jim Matheson, former Salt Lake mayor Rocky Anderson, and this guy<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0Pete Ashdown.\u00c2\u00a0 Matheson is one of the more conservative congressional Democrats, and I imagine the only way some less conservative Democrat would be sent to Washington is if the electoral map were drawn to have a district encircle Salt Lake City instead of how the Republicans in the state have crafted it for their advantage of slicing the city evenly.\u00c2\u00a0 Hence Rocky Anderson ended with his stint at Mayor, and that’s as far as he is going.\u00c2\u00a0 Pete Ashdown’s campaign made the cover of Wired and was endorsed by boing boing, but for some reason that great “Boing Boing” endorsement was not enough to persuade the state of Utah to push aside Orrin Hatch.\u00c2\u00a0 At any rate, Ashdown is coming off of a bruising imaginary governor’s race :<\/p>\n — so there’s nowhere else to turn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I wondered if wikipedia was keeping a break-neck pace with the developments of the 2010 Kentucky US Senate race — tied with the situation in Illinois as most dysfunctional item of political theater. The answer has gone from no to yes.\u00c2\u00a0 The opening states the situation in a broad outline — Incumbent senator Jim Bunning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ron-paul","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3470,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467\/revisions\/3470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRand Paul.
\nI said Ron Paul (and wife) named their son “Rand Paul.”<\/p>\n\n\n
\n Rasmussen<\/a><\/td>\n February 13, 2008<\/td>\n Jon Huntsman – 65%<\/td>\n Pete Ashdown – 18%<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n