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Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Matt Bevin slammed for speech at cockfighting rally
Bevin’s claim that the Founding Fathers were cockfighters is lampooned in new radio ad from Senator Mitch McConnell’s campaign
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LOUISVILLE (CFP) — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is lampooning his Republican primary rival, Matt Bevin, for speaking at a cockfighting rally and then asserting that the Founding Fathers were “very, very involved” in the blood sport.
U.S. Senate candidate Matt Bevin
The McConnell campaign is airing a new radio ad calling Bevin “a comedy of errors” and playing an excerpt from The Colbert Report where host Stephen Colbert made fun of Bevin’s speech at the rally.
“Matt Bevin keeps making national headlines, but not in a good way,” the ad says. “Matt Bevin, a comedy of errors. But don’t let the joke be on you.”
Bevin spoke at a rally in Corbin, Kentucky, on March 29, sponsored by the American Gamefowl Defense Network. The group supports legalizing cockfighting, which is currently illegal in all 50 states.
In an subsequent interview with WHAS radio in Louisville, Bevin said he thought the event was a state’s rights rally and wasn’t aware it was in support of cockfighting. He also said he didn’t “condone the sport.”
“But here’s the thing: I’m not going to disparage people for exercising their First Amendment rights,” Bevin told WHAS, before adding an historical analysis that McConnell is now using in the radio ad:
“But it’s interesting when you look at cockfighting, and dogfighting as well, this isn’t something new. It wasn’t invented in Kentucky. For example, I mean, the Founding Fathers were all, many of them, very actively involved in all of this and always have been,” Bevin said.
The Humane Society of the United States’ Legislative Fund is calling on Bevin to drop out of the Senate race.
“Matt Bevin showed appalling judgment in associating himself with this band of lawbreakers and perpetrators of unspeakable animal cruelty,” said Michael Markarian, president of the group. “He’s brought discredit upon the state of Kentucky, and he should withdraw from the Senate race.”
Bevin, 47, of Louisville is a former investment adviser who now runs his family’s bell manufacturing company in New Hampshire. This is his first run for political office. His primary challenge to McConnell has drawn financial support from national conservative groups, including FreedomWorks and the Senate Conservatives Fund.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
McConnell, 72, has been in the Senate since 1985. He was elected GOP leader in 2007 and would become majority leader if he wins re-election and Republicans pick up the six seats they need to take control.
Recent polling has shown McConnell with a wide lead in the primary race.
Whoever wins the Republican primary on May 20 will face Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes in the general election this fall.
McConnell is the Democrats’ top Senate target in 2014 and likely the only chance they have to pick up a seat anywhere in the South.
Curt Clawson wins GOP primary for vacant Florida U.S. House seat
Clawson, who billed himself as the outsider in the race, will be heavily favored to win June’s special election
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
FORT MYERS, Florida (CFP) — Curt Clawson, a wealthy businessman and former basketball star at Purdue University, has won the Republican primary for the vacant 19th District U.S. House seat in Florida.
Republican nominee Curt Clawson
Clawson, 53, making his first bid for political office, defeated two veteran officeholders, State Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benacquisto and former state Rep. Paige Kreegel. Although Clawson claimed just 38 percent of the vote, he won the nomination without a majority because Florida does not have primary runoffs.
“I think we sent a pretty clear message tonight, and I think it’s a good time for an outsider or two in Congress,” Clawson said at his victory rally April 21.
Both Clawson and Benacquisto had big name endorsements — Clawson from U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Benacquisto from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
The 19th District, which is centered in Fort Myers and runs along the coast of southwest Florida, is heavily Republican, which will make Clawson will be a heavy favorite in the June 24 special election over Democrat April Freeman, who was unopposed for her party’s nomination.
The seat became vacant in January when first term U.S. Rep. Trey Radel resigned after pleading guilty to cocaine possession.
Clawson played on Purdue’s 1984 team that won the Big 12 Championship
Analysis: Tight polls in Southern Senate races might not spell doom for Democrats
Senators Landrieu, Pryor and Hagan are still hanging on, despite the political winds against them.
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics. editor
The latest poll in the 2014 Arkansas U.S. Senate race showed the Democratic incumbent, U.S. Senator Mark Pryor, with a small but statistically insignificant lead over his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton. Recent polls in Louisiana and North Carolina also show Senate races in those states neck-and-neck.
So is Pryor’s glass half full or half empty? And ditto for Democratic Senators Mary Landrieu in Louisiana and Kay Hagan in North Carolina?
Yes, their votes in favor of Obamacare have proven politically toxic, and they’ve already been blasted with millions of dollars in negative ads. And yet, despite the headwinds blowing against them, they’re still standing.
So the question is, can their opponents really do anything between now and November to make these senators even less popular than they are now? Or has their unpopularity reached a floor through which it cannot fall?
In Arkansas, where I live, the negative ads have reached such a saturation point that they’ve become annoying background noise. The attacks have become monotone: Cotton is a politician we just can’t trust. Pryor is part of the sinister Obama-Pelosi-Obamacare cabal. And yet, this race hasn’t budged from where it was in October.
The problem for Cotton, and for Republican challengers in North Carolina and Louisiana, could be that most of the voters who can be persuaded to dislike Pryor, Hagan and Landrieu have already been persuaded to vote against them. And this still hasn’t put the Republicans in the lead.
Of course, all of these senators are much weaker politically than incumbents usually are, and they are running in states that Mitt Romney carried in 2012. The fortunes of Hagan and Landrieu may also rise or fall on who wins the Republican Senate primaries in their states.
But given all of the factors arrayed against Pryor, Hagan, and Landrieu, the fact that they aren’t behind at this point could bode well for their ultimate survival.
Alex Sink won’t run again for Florida U.S. House seat
Sink’s decision to bow out of the 13th District race leaves Democrats scrambling for a last-minute candidate
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (CFP) — Less than three weeks before Florida’s filing deadline, Democrat Alex Sink has announced that she won’t seek a rematch with Republican U.S. Rep. David Jolly in the state’s 13th U.S. House District, leaving her party scrambling to find a new candidate.
Alex Sink
Jolly narrowly defeated Sink in a March special election for the St. Petersburg-based seat, despite an all-out effort on her behalf by national Democratic officials.
“After reflection with my family, I have made a personal decision not to run,” Sink said in a statement. “I remain totally convinced that a Democrat can and will win this congressional seat in the fall, and I look forward to helping the Democratic nominee.”
Although Republicans hold an edge in party registration in the 13th District, it is one of just three GOP-held congressional districts in the South that President Barack Obama carried in 2012, making it a top Democratic target. The seat became vacant when Republican U.S. Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young, who held it for more than 42 years, died last October.
U.S. Rep. David Jolly
Jolly, 41, a former Washington lobbyist and Young aide, is seeking a full term in November. The filing deadline for Democrats who want to run against Jolly is May 2.
Sink, 65, Florida’s former chief financial officer, was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, narrowly losing to Gov. Rick Scott. Although she didn’t live in the district, she was recruited to run by national party officials. Once she got into the race, other Democrats in Pinellas County stepped aside.
Outside Democratic and Republican groups poured more than $9 million into the special election, which was seen as a bellweather of their political prospects heading into November’s mid-term election.
The main fault line in the campaign was Obamacare, which Sink embraced and Jolly opposed.
Pressure builds on U.S. Rep. Vance McAllister to resign
Governor Bobby Jindal and Louisiana’s GOP chairman call on McAllister to leave Congress after being caught on tape kissing a staffer
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
MONROE, Louisiana (CFP) — Two top leaders in U.S. Rep. Vance McAllister’s own Republican Party are calling for him resign over a video showing showing the married father of five kissing a female staffer outside of his congressional office in Monroe.
U.S. Rep. Vance McAllister
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Roger Villere, chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party, both say McAllister should step aside.
“Congressman McAllister’s behavior is an embarrassment,” Jindal said in a statement. “He says he wants privacy to work on his issues with his family. The best way to get privacy and work on putting his family back together is to resign from Congress.”
Villere was even more scathing, saying McAllister’s “extreme hypocrisy is an example of why ordinary people are fed up with politics.”
“A breach of trust of this magnitude can only be rectified by an immediate resignation. He has embarrassed our party, our state and the institution of Congress,” Villere said.
The video was first published by The Ouachita Citizen, a newspaper in West Monroe, which said it had obtained it from an anonymous source. The video came from a surveillance camera in the building housing McAllister’s district office.
After the newspaper posted the video, McAllister issued a public apology.
“There’s no doubt I’ve fallen short,” McAllister said. “I’m asking for forgiveness from God, my wife, my kids, my staff and my constituents.”
“I promise to do everything I can to earn back the trust of everyone I’ve disappointed,” he added, asking that his children be given privacy “as we get through this.”
In a subsequent interview with the Monroe News-Star, McAllister said he had no plans to resign and would seek re-election this fall.
The newspaper identified the female in the video as Melissa Peacock, a scheduler on McAllister’s district staff. Her husband, Heath Peacock, a campaign contributor and former co-worker of the congressman, told CNN that he is “devastated” by the video and plans to divorce his wife.
“I feel like I’m going to wake up here in a minute, and this is all going to be a bad nightmare,” Peacock said.
It is unknown who leaked the video. McAllister considered but eventually dropped the idea of requesting an FBI investigation into who provided the video to the newspaper.
McAllister, 40, a businessman from Swartz, was a political unknown when he elected to represent Louisiana’s 5th District in a special election in November, during which he portrayed himself as a Christian family man.
Watch the video:
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