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Rand Paul Wins in Kentucky and Gives the Tea Party Its First Senator

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Little more than an hour after the polls closed in Kentucky, Republican Rand Paul became the first candidate to arise out of the anti-big government tea party movement to be elected to the Senate. Based on exit polls and early returns that showed him with a 55 percent to 45 percent lead over Democrat Jack Conway, Paul was anointed senator-elect. Paul's victory does not affect the balance in the Senate since he won a GOP-held seat.
Paul benefited from voter anger over the sputtering economy and by associating Conway, the state's attorney general, with the policies of President Obama. Voters who were "dissatisfied" or "angry" toward the federal government backed Paul by a 2-to-1 margin, according to exit polls.

An ugly incident in late October in which a Democratic protester was physically stomped by a Rand Paul supporter outside a Senate debate had no apparent effect on Tuesday's vote.
After he won the May Republican primary against the mainstream GOP candidate supported by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Paul became the national embodiment of the tea party movement. Endorsed by Sarah Palin, Paul's Kentucky upset was a precursor to the china-shaking primary victories of Sharron Angle (Nevada), Christine O'Donnell (Delaware), Ken Buck (Colorado) and Joe Miller (Alaska).
The son of Ron Paul, the Texas Republican congressman and libertarian presidential contender, Kentucky's next senator is a 47-year-old eye surgeon from Bowling Green who continued seeing patients even after he won the primary. As a campaigner during the primary, Paul offered his audiences free-market, small-government lectures dotted with references to conservative economists like Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer.

After his primary victory (and a maladroit performance in a TV interview with Rachel Maddow in which he waffled on whether he would have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act), Paul became a stealth candidate who avoided reporters on the campaign trail and limited his public events.
Paul's ideological fervor and his limited personal charisma convinced national Democrats that they had a chance in Kentucky of picking off a Republican-held Senate seat. (Conservative Republican Sen. Jim Bunning, 79, a member of baseball's Hall of Fame, considered running for a third term, but bowed out in the face of limited financial support).


But Kentucky has long been a daunting state for Democrats, even when the national climate was not so heavily Republican. Despite a nominal Democratic registration advantage of 600,000 voters (mostly based on local politics), Obama only won 41 percent of Kentucky vote in 2008. Still, after they had abandoned hopes of winning other Republican-held seats in states like Missouri, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee continued to advertise on Kentucky television slamming Paul for supporting a 23-percent national sales tax.
The most memorable ad in Kentucky's sour-mash Senate primary was based on a GQ profile claiming that, while attending college at Baylor in 1983, a pot-smoking Paul had blindfolded and tied up a female student and forced her to bow down before an ersatz god named Aqua Buddha. (Paul denies that the incident ever happened). Conway, who had not led in any published poll since mid-August, gambled his campaign on making Aqua Buddha the theme of one of the most vicious ads of the 2010 campaign. Implying that Paul, a Presbyterian, actually worships oddball deities, the 30-second spot asked in an ominous tone, "Why was Rand Paul a member of a secret society that called the Holy Bible a hoax that was banned for mocking Christianity and Christ?"
The controversial commercial appeared to backfire. A pre-election poll found that 56 percent of Kentucky voters believed that the Aqua Buddha spot was "inappropriate." More tellingly, Conway's personal approval ratings plummeted and he went into Election Night with sharply more negative personal ratings than Rand Paul. The result was that Rand Paul is heading to Washington as the nation's first tea party senator and the second member of a father-and-son libertarian dynasty.

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Changling

Ron Paul for President 2012!! This election was a good start but we need to finish the job. Still many republicans that need to go as well as more democrats. We will have a Constitutional Govt. with or without the current crop of politicans.

November 03 2010 at 10:43 AM
cita531

the tea party has two years to fix everything, because that's how long they gave Obama......if they don't, then the signs are comming out with pictures of them wearing hitler mustaches. my favorite tea party sign was the one that said, "TELL THE GOVERNMENT TO STAY OUT OF MY MEDICARE"....be careful what you wish for america.

November 03 2010 at 10:34 AM
Robbert T Copper

Do you know what they mean by "smaller government?" Less people to make sure what you eat and drink are safe. To make sure big oil companies can't destroy our earth and kill workers and get away with it. To let big banks use you any way they want. And the list goes on. Do you get the ideal? I doubt if you get to read this because of the way AOL is set up.

November 03 2010 at 10:12 AM
Robbert T Copper

I'm glad i'm not a non-white person living in Kentucky. If Rand Paul aka The Grand Wizard, get his way he will set the civil rights movement back 60 years. He said so himself in so many words.

November 03 2010 at 10:04 AM
eastport111

Brilliant results,sanity has prevailed in Kentucky. Rand Paul cannot be held resonsible for the actions of his supporters. At least there is no question about his being a legal citizen,being a Muslim,etc., it just goes on and on. Good for Kentucky voters!!!

November 03 2010 at 9:46 AM -4
1 reply to eastport111's comment
dar3xcharm

love you eastport111, i'm from philadelphia, pa and it was an exciting evening to say the least!!!!

November 03 2010 at 10:12 AM
Pat

Jack Conway's dirty smear campaign, including the set-up situation with the stomped-on protester from MoveOn, did more to get Rand Paul elected than anything else. As for his inexperience, he's probably not any less experienced than President Obama. He's also not a Republican. The only reason the Republicans got in was that the Democratic, "Progressive" agenda sickens mainstream America. The Republicans better be on notice: your jobs are on the line now, too. Put up, uphold the Constitution, listen to the people, or shut up and make way for the Independents, Libertarians and Tea Partiers.

November 03 2010 at 9:42 AM -2
Winfree J

Please, Stop Hating We Are One Blood! " Stop Hating Me because we are Family" By Apostle James R Winfree Sr, We all need to treat every human being as our family, because the fact of the matter is we all are One man's Blood, that man name is Adam and Eve is the mother of us All...and recognize that all of us are Equal in Value before our Creator GOD. what a difference it would make in our world if each person understood and adopted this Biblical Truth!...We are all Equal before GOD, All humans are Descendants of Adam, All people were born into sin and was made sinners in Adam..All people in need of forgiveness and Salvation in Jesus Christ. everyone needs to Receive Jesus Christ as Savior and LORD of their life, each person Must build his or her thinking on GOD'S Word, All behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, Must be judged against the absolutes of GOD'S Word, no matter what culture one is from..then the problem of Hate would be solved. I Must say this, their is No Biblical justification for claiming that people from different so-called : Races. Hate is an ugly sin in our world and society, The Bible clearly explains why we are all One Blood, which makes us All Family. When Hate rears its ugly head and we miss out on capable people because they just don't look like us, hate is particularly frustrating and often leads to racism, this happens because we treat people like we see them, God said in the book of Isaiah 40:15," Behold, the nations are like A Drop in A Bucket, and counted as the small dust on the scales. Look what Malachi said: 2:10, " Have we not All One FATHER?. Has not GOD Created us?..why do we deal Treacherously with one another by Profaning the Covenant of the fathers?..Look what is says over in Acts 17:26, " And GOD has made All Nations of One Blood to dwell on the face of the earth. Look what Apostle Paul said. Rom 5:12, " Wherefore, as by One man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon All men and women and children...for All have sinned. Again look what Apostle Paul says, 1 Cor 15:12,22 For since death is through man The Resurrection of the dead also is Through One Man. for as in Adam all died, Even so In Christ All will be made Alive. " We are Family if you like it are not so stop Hating Me. Love your brother in Christ. Jesus is The LORD of All Christians and Believers. Other Sites We're On B1 God's People N Christ /B1GODSPEOPLENCHRIST : B1GodsPeopleNChrist/My Page - Faith-Space.com /apostlejrw01: iReporter User Profile - iReport.com /Christian.com Social Network Community for Christians/AOL Search results for "Apostle Winfree Ministry" /Facebook | Home /myspace.com/bishopwinfre... Apostle James Winfree Prayer

November 03 2010 at 9:32 AM -4
beemerboxer

His supporters are going to be very angry when they discover he cannot pull the miracles he promised and will corrupt like most of his political colleagues in DC. Nothing like an emperor with no clothes to fool some of the people all of the time.

November 03 2010 at 9:22 AM -1
Joln321

An eye surgeon, collage pranks. We all have done dumb stupid things when we were young. Put I'm sure glad Pelosi is gone, can you imagine the Speaker of the House saying as She did." we have to pass this legislation and make it law in order to find out what's in it" That's like saying, first we have to Kill the Child to find out why the Child pooped it's pants.Ridiculous. There is a growing political unrest that is boiling up amongst voters. They thought the Bush administration was bad, but they found out the Obama administration is worse. Thats why the rise of the tea party. People are fed up with Politicians that talk and talk but do nothing but see this country go down the drain. A U.S. President siding with a Foreign country suing the State of Arizona for trying to enforce immigration laws that the Federal Government refuses to enforce ????? Someone in the U.S. Government needs to be impeached.

November 03 2010 at 9:00 AM
cairnhowff

We in Kentucky are sad! Rand Paul has never held a political office, he's an eye doctor. The so-called Tea Party's extremeist rhetoric may have won over the 'country' vote, the typical 'bare foot and pregnant' folk in Kentucky....but in the cities, the informed, intellegent voters chose Conway. Too bad there's so few metropolitan areas in the state.

November 03 2010 at 8:54 AM -5
1 reply to cairnhowff's comment
gr8bsn

What was so "extreme" about the rhetoric? Smaller taxes, smaller government? Oh yeah, you can't give an example because you follow the rhetoric of the "anointed" and you will not be questioned, not for any reason. You think you exist on some morally superior plane, but you have nothing, I mean ABSOLUTELY NO FACTS TO BACK UP WHAT YOU ARE SAYING!

November 03 2010 at 9:44 AM +2

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