United Liberty

Even though Trey Grayson is still embracing the establishment, tossing out attacks and complaining about Fox News, Rand Paul seems to be headed for victory in the Republican primary for United States Senate in Kentucky:

Unless there has been a polling fiasco that rivals the Great New Hampshire Primary Debacle Of 2008, Rand Paul will emerge tomorrow as the GOP nominee in Kentucky. This is an astonishing development: If I were to take the wayback machine to last summer to tell 2009 Sean Trende that Rand Paul was to be the GOP nominee, 2009 Sean Trende would probably have voluntarily committed himself to a mental hospital to get ahead of what appeared to be his forthcoming break with reality.

You see, the GOP got its favored candidate when Secretary of State Trey Grayson, one of two Republicans holding statewide office, declared for the seat of retiring Senator Jim Bunning. Ron Paul’s son, Rand, later declared for the seat, and was seen as something of a gadfly.

Paul has turned out to be anything but a gadfly. He had three advantages over Grayson. First, he had access to his father’s name and fundraising network. Although Ron Paul didn’t win any primaries in 2008, he did raise tremendous amounts of money, and Rand has followed suit. Second, he was an anti-establishment candidate in an anti-establishment year. And finally, he was fortunate enough (or clever enough) to run for the Senate in the Year of the Tea Party. Indeed, if you run down Paul’s issues list, you see a veritable cornucopia of Tea Party keywords: Bailouts, national defense, inflation, taxes, debt, liberty, sovereignty, the Fed, and so forth.

But what does this mean for the general election? Can Paul win?
[…]
Despite enduring withering attacks from Grayson over the past three months, Paul leads Mongiardo and Conway. His leads aren’t as large as Grayson’s, but they range from the solid (against Democratic frontrunner Mongiardo) to the narrow (against Conway). More impressively, he hasn’t trailed against either potential Democrat in any polling since last summer.

Moreover, while fiscal populism is frequently contradictory – anti-corporate and anti-government – in this year they are uniquely married together. Paul’s anti-bailout message really goes to both strands of populism, and is tailor-made for Democrats who are wary of taxes, and who really don’t like their tax dollars going to corporations.

Finally, for all of the obvious attacks on Paul’s positions, he’ll have a trump to play against his Democratic opponent that he can’t unleash in the primary: “Sending [Mongiardo/Conway] to Washington is another Democratic vote for Barack Obama’s agenda.” In a state where the President received 41% of the vote last November and currently suffers from a net -20 approval rating, it’s hard to see a Democratic Senator headed for Washington.

I am beginning to wonder if many of the Republicans that have come out against Rand Paul are going to get behind him in the general election. For example, despite the polling and all signs pointing to him winning, David Frum, one of the more notable neo-conservatives, is still swinging away at Paul.

Many of the neo-conservative attacks leveled by Grayson’s campaign and his neo-conservative friends were aimed at his opponents father, Ron Paul. It looks like Kentuckians are going to see past that tonight.

The margin of victory for Paul will be less than what the polling suggests, my guess is anywhere from 6 to 10 points.