Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell: Odd-Couple Allies.

Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell: Odd-couple allies

Sensing a tea party uprising back home after Paul defeated McConnell’s hand-picked candidate in the 2010 Senate primary, the calculating Republican leader focused on bringing Paul and his supporters under his wing. Two years later, it’s paying off: The two men barnstorm the state together in both official and political events; throw high-dollar fundraisers for one another; and are trying to merge the GOP’s tea party wing with the party’s establishment, social conservative and business wings — heading off an intraparty war that has uprooted Republican politics in many parts of the country.

The latest example came Thursday, when McConnell announced he had hired Jesse Benton — a top aide to both Paul’s Senate campaign in 2010 and Rep. Ron Paul’s presidential campaign this year — to lead what could be the toughest reelection campaign of the Republican leader’s career in 2014.

The year-long search that ended with Benton’s hiring was a major signal to Republicans that McConnell views support from the younger libertarian and tea party movements as crucial not only to his political future, but also to his party’s prospects nationally.

“The last thing we want are tea party folks to feel like they’re not welcome in the Republican Party and then they’d have to form a third party that would hurt both of us,” Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said when asked about the alliance between Paul and McConnell. “I think it’s been a positive development.”

Still, the move isn’t risk-free. The tea party remains unpopular nationally, and Democrats have a voter registration advantage in Kentucky — meaning any shift to the right could hurt McConnell in what will likely be a furious Democratic challenge in 2014. Paul, meanwhile, risks alienating some supporters who worry the establishment will co-opt the purist movement.

Still, both men clearly believe they have something to gain.

McConnell lends establishment credibility to Paul, who’s seen by some Republicans as the leader of a fringe movement that gave his father Ron Paul the perch to call for a radically smaller government and isolationist policies abroad. Their alliance could help the younger Paul forge a broader coalition of supporters — something he began to do in an address to the GOP convention — as he decides whether to make a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 or 2020, or survive a Senate reelection bid in five years.

For McConnell, the Paul relationship could help him gain clout with the tea party movement, which has a mixed track record defeating entrenched members of Congress. McConnell angered tea party types two years ago when he backed Paul’s GOP primary opponent, Trey Grayson.

“In 2010, the establishment Republicans for the most part supported Paul, despite misgivings. That helped him to win,” Grayson said. “One of the keys for McConnell is to keep the tea party behind him in 2014.”

In interviews Thursday, neither Paul nor McConnell would talk much about their relationship.

Paul called it “very good.”

“We’re excited about it,” Paul said of the Benton hire. “I think Jesse will do a great job for him.”

When asked about his relationship with Paul, McConnell would only say: “Well, we’ve established a very good working relationship.”

It didn’t happen overnight.



After quietly pushing then-Sen. Jim Bunning to retire, McConnell — who rarely publicly endorses in home state primaries — cut a TV ad on Grayson’s behalf, fearing Paul would lose the general election that year. But Paul won resoundingly, leaving McConnell on the losing side of an intraparty civil war.

Immediately after the May 2010 primary, McConnell tried to soothe over tensions. He led a unity rally outside the state Capitol in Frankfort and gave Paul crucial political advice after the rookie candidate gave confusing and controversial comments to the press over his views on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, sending his campaign into a tailspin.
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In an interview Thursday, Benton — who said he got Paul’s blessing before taking the McConnell job — said those moments were crucial to forging the relationship between the Paul and McConnell camps.

“We had a little stumble in the media, the national Democrats were ramping up their attacks and Republicans were not quite sure what to make of Rand,” Benton said. “But Sen. McConnell, true to his word, held the unity rally and helped soothe any hurt feelings.”

McConnell later dispatched several trusted aides, including his now-chief of staff Josh Holmes, to help advise Paul’s campaign against Democratic candidate Jack Conway. McConnell toured the state on a campaign bus with Paul, attending tea party rallies along the way. And some veterans who were dispatched by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to help Paul later stayed on to help advise his father’s 2012 presidential campaign.

All of this has built a deeper level of trust between McConnell and Paul as well as their staffs.

“The relationship between Paul world and McConnell grew throughout 2010 and is growing since he’s been in the Senate,” said Trygve Olson, a top GOP operative and McConnell ally who helped advise both Pauls’s campaigns. “Their relationship is one in which you see both sides benefiting.”

In Benton, McConnell believes he’s hired a savvy strategist who knows how to run a presidential-style campaign, which McConnell is already preparing for with $6 million in the bank. Benton has proven that he can run a winning statewide campaign in Kentucky and can cobble together a coalition of conservative activists.

McConnell himself has tried to do the latter over the last two years — especially with the Paul forces.

Earlier this week, he swung by a reception at the Library of Congress honoring Ron Paul, who is retiring at the end of the Congress. And he appeared in a Republican National Convention tribute video to the elder Paul.

Before the convention, McConnell and Paul spent an entire day together in Kentucky, attending a tea party rally and a state party lunch as well as meeting with a coal industry group and dropping by a Louisville hospital. They even headlined a fundraiser for Thomas Massie, the tea party-backed House candidate from northern Kentucky. Their wives also correspond regularly.

The two also have raised money for each other. In March, Paul was the featured guest for a McConnell fundraiser. And last summer, McConnell headlined Paul’s inaugural fundraiser for his political action committee, known as RAND PAC.

When their policy goals diverge on the Hill, McConnell often gives Paul plenty of room to maneuver. The latest example was this week, as Paul held up the Senate floor in a dispute over cutting foreign aid to Pakistan, Libya and Egypt.

But politically, both men seem to be on the same page — for now.

“It’s been a very interesting evolution,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), No. 3 in leadership. “The one thing you don’t want to have is a lot of intra-family conflict.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81194_Page2.html#ixzz26S5veP7F