GOP tires of having Sen. Bunning on team

Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-Ky.) political career began to deteriorate this week after he apologized for making insensitive remarks about a sitting Supreme Court justice and then threatened to sue his own party if it forced him to retire.

While his public missteps may have damaged his reelection chances for the moment, perhaps more troubling is the distance that appears to be developing between Bunning and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

{mosads}Once considered best friends in the chamber, their relationship has soured as many harbor the belief that Bunning is not the best candidate to keep the seat in GOP hands, according to Senate sources.

A spokesman for McConnell said the Republican leader “considers Sen. Bunning a close friend and a respected member of his caucus, and they continue to work closely on issues of great importance to their constituents.”

Bunning declined to comment for this article.

Democrats have targeted Bunning, an irascible member of the chamber and former Hall of Fame pitcher, in the next cycle. New GOP polling shows him down in a hypothetical match-up against a Democratic challenger, according to a GOP source.

Republican strategists are desperate to avoid a reprise of the 2007 gubernatorial race, in which an unpopular GOP incumbent — Ernie Fletcher, who became ensnared in scandal — refused to step down and lost the governor’s mansion to Democrats.

Bunning is planning a vigorous defense of his seat. He is in the midst of hiring campaign staff and scheduling fundraisers and plans to raise $10 million for his reelection.

Campaign records show that his campaign has only $150,000 and that he raised a mere $27,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Bunning has implied that he held back on fundraising to give McConnell, who faced a difficult reelection himself last year, uncontested access to GOP donors in Kentucky. This has made McConnell’s fading support all the more painful, said one Senate lawmaker.

Bunning, who was known for his intimidating demeanor on the mound during his baseball career, has found himself an odd man out in the Senate, where chumminess is just as important as policy acumen.

Colleagues describe Bunning as having few friends in the upper chamber.

“He’s kind of the cranky old uncle,” said a lawmaker who added that he sometimes watches baseball games in the cloakroom with Bunning during late-night votes.

“He doesn’t really chum around with people,” said the lawmaker, who said leadership’s dwindling support is a practical calculation. “I don’t think it’s a personal thing — I think it’s a political judgment.”

McConnell and Bunning’s relationship reached a low last week when an aide to McConnell suggested that a potential primary challenger meet with National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) officials.

NRSC Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) said committee officials met with Kentucky Senate President David Williams, who is exploring a challenge to Bunning, as a “courtesy.”

Despite this, Cornyn said this week that he would support Bunning’s reelection bid.

That failed to appease the cantankerous Kentuckian.

“I don’t believe anything John Cornyn says. I’ve had miscommunications with John Cornyn from, I guess, the first week of this current session of the Senate,” Bunning fumed in a conference call with reporters.

“He either doesn’t understand English or he doesn’t understand direct: ‘I’m going to run,’ which I said to him in the cloakroom of our chamber,” Bunning said, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

In a sign of how desperate Bunning’s political situation has become, he threatened during the same call to sue the NRSC if it supported a primary challenger. He argued that the committee was created to support incumbents and that backing a challenger would violate its bylaws.

Bunning suffered another political embarrassment this week when he apologized under pressure for predicting that liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who is fighting pancreatic cancer, had less than nine months to live.

{mospagebreak}Cornyn said the blow-up with Bunning is the result of miscommunication.

“I think it’s a big misunderstanding — we’re supporting Sen. Bunning,” said Cornyn, who added that he did not think Bunning would sue his committee.

Cornyn said he did not did not personally invite Williams to meet with NRSC strategists.

{mosads}“Someone on Sen. McConnell’s staff asked my staff to meet with him as a courtesy and we said, ‘Of course.’ ”

By steering a potential challenger to the NRSC, and by way of other actions, McConnell has sent a clear signal that he does not think Bunning is the best candidate to keep his Senate seat from falling to Democrats.

This has hurt and angered Bunning, according to a GOP senator who described himself as a friend.

“I think the relationship was good,” said the senator. “Bunning has always been loyal to Mitch and credits him with helping him win reelection in 2004.”

The lawmaker noted that Bunning refrained from criticizing McConnell when the Republican leader supported a $700 billion Wall Street bailout package last fall.

Bunning and many other conservatives lambasted the package, which funneled tens of billions of dollars to banks blamed for the national economic crisis.

But Bunning’s patience with McConnell has begun to wear thin. Bunning lashed out at his home-state colleague earlier this month after McConnell told reporters at the National Press Club that he didn’t know whether Bunning would seek reelection.

Bunning said he told McConnell that he would run again.

“Mitch must have made a judgment on [Bunning’s] political viability and decided that friendship only goes so far,” said the GOP lawmaker, who describes himself as friendly with Bunning.
“For Bunning, that must have hurt.”

One Kentucky Republican insider said that McConnell used to refer to Bunning as his “best friend in the Senate.”

But McConnell now appears willing to put politics ahead of friendship; the loss of Bunning’s seat could give Democrats control of 60 seats, a filibuster-proof majority.

“McConnell would be seen as responsible for letting the party fall below the 41-seat threshold, and he couldn’t stomach that,” said the source. “He doesn’t let his personal loyalties get in the way of his political judgment.”

Internal polling has circulated among GOP strategists showing Bunning down by “mid single digits” in a hypothetical general-election match-up.

A poll by Research 2000, an independent firm, showed Bunning’s approval rating at 41 percent.

The firm conducted the survey for Daily Kos, a liberal website.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, who lost narrowly to Bunning in 2004, said he would challenge him again.