But on the interesting meter, those two races pale in comparison to what is going on in Kentucky, where, as of Tuesday morning, the national handkerchief has been handed to Tea Party candidate Rand Paul, who stormed off the stage after a debate and refused to shake hands with his opponent, Jack Conway. Like a toddler who has had his favorite blanky taken away from him, Rand Paul is simpering on television screens all across the land because his opponent is running commercials that question Rand Paul’s Christian faith. Drawing on some cult weirdness from Rand Paul’s college days – a secret society, a woman tied up and bowed down before some sort of statue – Jack Conway’s ads accuse Rand Paul of mocking Christianity. The religious conservatives, following their always effective game plan to hoard the victim prize before anyone else can even find it, are crying foul. Among their many explanations for why this is so unjust is this gem: those activities took place when Rand Paul was in college, 30 years ago, so this is unfair.
Which reminded me – how could it not? – of a prime bit of televised lunacy from the early 1990s, when rumors began to surface that a young man with presidential aspirations from Arkansas had smoked weed when he was in college. I do not know of a single person who came of age in the 1960s or 1970s who did not smoke pot at one time or another – some more than others, of course – but in 1992 the television people, rather than introducing any contextual logic to the story, flamed it for all it was worth. And here in 2010 they are doing the same thing with the Kentucky cry baby. On Tuesday morning, Matt Lauer, whose on-air persona is so dumbed down it’s almost adorable, put on his glasses – that means it’s tough time – and asked Jack Conway, “Do you believe Rand Paul is a man of faith?” I realize Matt Lauer’s fortune is dependent on him overcompensating for the Republican-spawned fantasy that the media is liberal, but seriously. Who cares if Jack Conway thinks Rand Paul is “a man of faith”? Jack Conway doesn’t. He answered the question simply and clearly. “I am not questioning his faith,” he said, “I am questioning his actions.” Matt Lauer, in the midst of a hallucination in which he is a journalist, asked his question again, more sternly this time. And Jack Conway, again, answered it, adding that he has concrete plans to create more than 11,000 jobs in Kentucky. What does Rand Paul have? There was no answer to that, since Rand Paul refused to come on the show. Perhaps he was just following the lead of other Tea Party candidates, who refuse to talk to the media, but it may have been something much more simple than that – perhaps he’d been sent to his room for a time out.
Unfortunately, other Democrats weren’t quite as logical as Jack Conway. In addition to a severe aversion to cults, one of the many reasons I refuse to register as a Democrat is that their spinelessness plays directly into the Republican strategy time after time after time. Accordingly, the chorus from Democrats across the country – including, sadly, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill – was that Jack Conway’s ads went too far and crossed the line. Which made me wonder, what line? Because my opinion is that until presenting yourself as overtly religious becomes as much of a political liability as an endorsement from Nancy Pelosi, Jack Conway has not gone nearly far enough. But it’s a great start.
