Who's the Bigger Liar - Rand Paul or the Courier-Journal?

How to tell when a political campaign or a once-great newspaper is swirling the drain:

The dying newspaper runs as a "print exclusive" old news that a local blogger broke weeks ago.

And the failing political campaign tries to hide its hypocrisy by scrubbing its website of no-longer-operative positions.

We're all put to shame by the way Media Czech and Jake are beating even the network heavyweights to the great Rand Paul stories.

But the proper way to handle that is to admit our failure, credit the scoopers and work harder. The Courier chose to continue its pretense that Kentucky bloggers don't exist and insult its readers by running Jake's scoop as its own.

In contrast, the Herald-Leader shows how it's done, by crediting Media Czech with breaking the news about Paul scrubbing his website.

The Herald-Leader has its problems, but it has yet to sink to Courier level. So check out the Rand Paul news there this morning:

Jack Conway's campaign woke up from its post-primary nap with a demand that Paul release his Medicaid billing records.

And Paul throws a temper tantrum over anyone daring to question his medical qualifications.

Your Two Stops for Everything Rand Paul

General election races in Kentucky usually shut down for the summer shortly after the May primary, not heating up until after Labor Day - with the exception of the traditional attack fireworks at Fancy Farm the first Saturday in August.

But aynrandpaul and the teabagger-fellating (is that even possible?) MSM hanging on his every idiot utterance just won't quit.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I am not going to try to keep up with Jake and Media Czech on Ron Paul - both of them are doing amazing work ferreting out the ugly truth, tracking down and nailing every mis-step, uploading the videos and posting it for all the world to see.

Here is the link to Everything Rand Paul on Page One Kentucky.

And here is the link to Everything Ran Paul on Barefoot and Progressive.

If you want the latest and the best on Kentucky's U.S. Senate race, that's where to find it.

It's Conway vs. Paul in Kentucky

UPDATE, 6:00 AM: Conway's passionate victory speech below.

AP calls it for Jack Conway.

Conway got more votes in beating Mongiardo by 1 percentage point than Paul got in beating Trey Grayson by 24 points.

Don't get too excited: far too many Kentucky Democrats vote Republican in general elections. But Conway's win is an extremely good omen for November.

UPDATE, 10:19 p.m. From Ryan Alessi's new home at cn/2politics:

With chants of “We got it back” and “No more tea,” supporters of Jack Conway celebrated and sent out a warning shot all in one as the announcement that Conway had narrowly won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate circulated inside the Downtown Marriott.

Conway is expected to speak at 10:30 p.m., and campaign spokeswoman Allison Haley said that Mongiardo has called Conway to concede the race. He’ll speak first, the Conway will take the stage here.

I missed this earlier, but apparently Conway lost Daviess County - Wendell Ford's home - by 200 votes. Yet Conway won Warren County - Rand Paul's home. This general election is going to be one hell of a ride.

Conway's victory speech, courtesy cn\2politics.

Media Czech Liveblogging Kentucky Election

Follow him with all the details here.

Bruce Ditching Mitch? Don't Count On It

As fun as it is to watch everybody go nuts over this Rasmussen poll that shows Democratic nominee Bruce Lunsford beating Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell by five points, I have to throw cold water on this premature and unwarranted celebration.

Ain't gonna happen.

Even if it were gonna happen, a poll five months before the general election wouldn't tell you anything about it.

Bruce Lunsford won the Democratic primary last Tuesday. Today's poll reflects a primary bump from the heavy coverage the primary campaign and Lunsford's victory received in both the MSM and the blogosphere.

Remember that Mitch McConnell was a severe underdog in 1984 when he set out to upset secure sitting Senator Dee Huddleston. McConnell was almost laughed out of the state when his ads first aired. Featuring a pack of bloodhounds sniffing through the U.S. Capitol, "searching" for the often-absent Huddleston, they were dismissed as ridiculous by political professionals.


It was only later, after the comical but viciously effective attack ads worked, that political pros praised and copied them.

To win this race in a landslide, Mitch needs to run one ad. Just one. It'll show Bruce Lunsford embracing Barack Obama. Even if it's a photo-shopped fake.

No, of course it didn't work in Mississippi; Democrats in Mississippi love Obama 61-37. In Kentucky, they hate him, 30-66. Here, it'll work.

The only thing that will save Lunsford from dying by that ad is if he denounces Obama now, denounces Obama loud, and keeps on denouncing Obama at the top of his lungs every day from now until November 4.

However, such Obama-hating will guarantee that the anti-Lunsford Democrats whom Lunsford needs to win this election, and who for the moment are willing to hold their noses and actually vote for Bruce in order to get rid of Mitch, will change their minds and sit this one out.

Don't get me wrong. I believe strongly that Obama will have great coattails in November and will provide the margin of victory to scores of down-ticket Democrats throughout the country who would have lost under a different presidential candidate.

But Kentucky's Senate race is a hat-trick for republicans: a Democratic Senate candidate purely hated by half his state party, led by a Democratic presidential candidate hated by two-thirds of his state party, up against a meaner-than-a-snake national power-broker with more than enough money to buy every spare minute of TV time in the state for the next five months.

There is no scenario, including a Democratic tsunami that takes out almost every Republican incumbent in the nation, that permits a Lunsford victory.

Ain't gonna happen.

But if you must have a ray of hope, that depressing prediction comes from the same person who predicted Clinton would win Kentucky by less than 10 points.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.