The candidate who best exemplifies the anti-establishment message Tuesday is Paul, a tousle-haired eye doctor from Bowling Green who is making his first run for political office.
More libertarian than Republican, Paul, 47, opposes the Iraq war and the Patriot Act, favors legalizing medical marijuana and would leave the issue of same-sex marriage up to individual states. He swears he would close the Department of Education, oppose any budget that was not balanced and seek no earmarks for Kentucky — a brave stance in a poor state that has long counted on the longevity of its lawmakers to bring federal dollars home.
"Money should be spent based on the objective nature of a project, not the seniority of senators," Paul said in an interview. " Robert Byrd has been there 50 years and paved every inch of West Virginia," he went on, referring to the senior member of the Senate. "That's not a good way to run your government."
Paul's main opponent is square-jawed, buttoned-down Trey Grayson, Kentucky's secretary of state and a former corporate lawyer from the Cincinnati suburbs. He was tapped by McConnell, who helped shove the state's junior senator, Jim Bunning, into retirement because Grayson seemed more electable. His list of endorsements includes former Vice President Dick Cheney and ex-New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Grayson is cut from standard-issue Republican cloth, favoring lower taxes and smaller government. But he and his allies have mostly sought to discredit Paul, who holds a steady double-digit lead in polls, by highlighting some of the more provocative notions he shares with his father — among them, a suggestion that America's foreign policy was at least partly to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks.
They have not been subtle. There is a website, randpaulstrangeideas.com — "Rand Paul for Senate? Are you kidding?" goes the tag line — and one ad featured a cuckoo clock, chiming over Paul's shoulder. The latter, however, may have backfired. In the days after the spot ran, Paul raised $100,000 from supporters around the country — many acolytes of his father — who spread word of the attack.
"In hindsight, maybe the so-called establishment Republicans should have just ignored him," said Laurie Rhodebeck, a University of Louisville political scientist. "They couldn't have done any worse."
Indeed, the more McConnell and other party leaders line up against Paul, the more it seems to reinforce his outsider credentials among voters who are frustrated with the professional political class.
