Dearest Jimbo: Don't Ever Change

Two years from now, weeks after the new Senator from Kentucky is sworn in, Jim Bunning will still be sending mixed signals about whether he's running for re-election.

Senator Non Compos Mentis held another conference call with reporters today, and as usual made sure anything they wrote would directly contradict everything they wrote before.

Sen. Jim Bunning today renewed his attacks on his fellow Kentucky Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, accusing him of selfishness and being responsible for lost GOP seats in the Senate.

“Good God, he wants to run everybody,” Bunning said of McConnell during a conference call with reporters.

Bunning contrasted his 2010 re-election bid with that of Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who last week bolted the Republican Party and joined the Democrats.

“It is the fact that Arlen Specter is probably as selfish as our leader is in trying to survive, that’s the only way he thought he would survive in the U.S. Senate,” Bunning said.

“Do you know Arlen Specter will be 80, has had four bouts with cancer and he still wants to run for the U.S. Senate?” Bunning continued. “And I’m being criticized at 77 and healthy for wanting to run for the U.S. Senate by certain leadership people in my party. Give me a break.”

Asked if the leadership he was referring to was McConnell, Bunning answered: “Obviously. Do you want me to spell it out for you?”

He said: “Do you realize that under our dynamic leadership of our leader, we have gone from 55 and probably to 40 (Senate seats) in two election cycles, and if the tea leaves that I read are correct, we will wind up with about 36 after this election cycle.

So if leadership means anything, it means you don’t lose … approximately 19 seats in three election cycles with good leadership.”

Those comments pretty much guarantee that Jimbo's not going to raise enough money to run for Villa Hills dog-catcher, but it's not clear that he understands that.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), who has accused his party leadership of sabotaging his fundraising and trying to force him into retirement, is now raising a possible scenario under which he might just retire -- if he can't get enough money.

"We're working like the devil to make those goals," Bunning told reporters. And if he doesn't meet his goals: "we're going to take another look at the race. I'm not going to walk into 2010 with less than $1 million when I know it's going to cost $7 million minimally, probably $10 (million), somewhere in that area, to run against the winner of the Democratic primary."

And because the Kentucky Senate race isn't confusing and entertaining enough yet, Ron Paul's son Rand, who happens to be a doctor in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is threatening to jump into the repug primary.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....