Kentucky politics features two heavyweights, but in decidedly separate corners.
In one, there is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has represented the state since 1984. He is champion of the Republican establishment, which has been under attack by the Tea Party. Enter first-term Senator Rand Paul, an ardent Tea Party conservative elected in the Tea Party wave of the 2010 midterms.
The senators have both been in the news recently, for reasons that bespeak their personalities and political styles: McConnell for helping orchestrate the fiscal cliff compromise, and Paul for grilling Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings (saying he “would have fired” her if he were president).
Overall, their relationship is strenuous at best. Paul trounced McConnell’s endorsed successor, former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, by 23 points in the 2010 primaries. McConnell went on to endorse Paul in the general election, but the two have not found much common ground.
With a 2014 reelection bid coming up, it’s now McConnell who needs the endorsement of Paul, with a primary Tea Party challenger a certainty after the cliff compromise. (Anyone who thinks that the Senate Majority leader is safe from a primary challenge should ask the former longest serving Republican senator, Dick Lugar, what he thinks.) Paul has attended McConnell fundraisers, and released a statement praising their common interests, but has stopped short of an official endorsement.
McConnell isn’t completely at the whim of Paul, however. It’s widely reported that Paul is eyeing a 2016 presidential run, and an endorsement from insider McConnell could give his campaign the establishment support missing from the various failed campaigns of his father, former Rep. Ron Paul.
No matter what happens, it’s clear that these two lawmakers are worthy contenders to shape the future of the Republican Party, and the nation as a whole.