A Hero For Shutting Down Unemployment Funds

Here in the NKY, GOP Sen. Jim Bunning dropped by last Saturday night to a fundraiser in Hebron and drew praise from those who thought it was a great idea to cut off benefits to Kentucky's double digit unemployed.

Back home, the former major league pitcher and hall-of-famer is known as a budget hawk standing against out-of-control federal spending. Some 400 people paid $60 to $100 each to reserve seats to honor him at a dinner Saturday evening. McConnell was conspicuously absent, but scores of other politicians lavished Bunning with praise.

"Jim Bunning has been right more than he's been wrong," said Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican who thinks of Bunning as his mentor. "And history will show that he, more than anyone else, predicted some of the economic problems we're having now and worked to try to prevent them."

Bunning had been widely considered the most vulnerable Republican incumbent heading into this year's elections, and with the GOP trying to retake majority control of the Senate, they encouraged the 78-year-old not to seek a third term. Many feared he couldn't hold the seat against one of the two prominent Democratic candidates, Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo and Attorney General Jack Conway.

But given the change in political mood, Alecia Webb-Edgington – who helped organize the dinner – believes Bunning might have been written off too quickly.

"He's incredibly popular," she said. "I truly believe he could have easily won another term."

Grayson, who is running for the Senate seat, called Bunning "a Hall of Famer in baseball, politics and life."

This is the same Bunning who has been known to curse at reporters, the tenacious campaigner who once described a Democratic challenger of Italian descent as looking like one of Saddam Hussein's sons. He apologized for that comment.

And, last year, he apologized again after he predicted Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, would be dead within a year.

"Jim Bunning may not be known for his sense of humor," Kentucky Republican U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis said in an interview, "but he is a man of unimpeachable integrity."

No need to impeach his integrity, he's on his way home back to NKY here.  The "incredibly popular" Bunning is being told to retire because there's no way he'd win a third term.  The problem is the men trying to replace him:  the oily Trey Grayson and nutbar crazy Rand Paul on the GOP side, and the DINO Jack Conway and good ol' boy insider Dan Mongiardo on the Democratic one.

Kentucky seems increasingly serious about replacing one insane senator with one who's actually far more dangerous.  On the other hand, it seems to be a race to the bottom to see who can piss off more of the Bluegrass State first, Lt. Dan trying to use UK basketball to attack Jack Conway thus drawing the wrath of Kentucky Sports Radio's Matt Jones, or Rand Paul telling the Louisville Metro Republican Women's Club to go intercourse themselves by suddenly pulling out of their sponsored debate with Trey Grayson.

I may be from North Carolina myself, but even I know you don't mess with 'Cats basketball in March in this state.  It's like all four candidates want to lose.