Bunning Identifies a Significant GOP Problem
First reported by James Carroll at the C-J now carried at Bluegrass Politics, Bunning had this to say about the successful approach of the GOP's leadership:
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."
Indeed, a decade of support for power over principle has diminished the GOP. The greatest problem with Arlen Specter is not just that he supported the stimulus, but that he thought leadership was " peeling a $100 billion dollars off whatever the Democrats ask for and declaring victory."
Arlen Specter left to GOP because he realized that PA Republican primary voters would see straight through his CYA politics. From his website:
On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate.
It is truly an insult to the Democratic voters of Pennslyvania that he thinks they won't.
