Joseph Gerth

@Joe_Gerth

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said yesterday that he believes members of the tea party movement who backed Louisville businessman Matt Bevin in the Republican primary will quickly coalesce behind Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

And he said he plans to do everything McConnell asks of him to make sure that happens.

"I'm going to be campaigning not only for Sen. McConnell, but also to take over the Kentucky House and for the Republican Party," said Paul, who was elected as a tea party favorite in 2010. "I'm going to do everything I can."

There appears to be some dissent in the tea party ranks about whether McConnell can bring those people on board as he faces what may be his toughest election fight since first winning his Senate seat in 1984.

David Adams, a tea party organizer from Nicholasville, said he thinks Paul is right and that members of the tea party will flock to McConnell after they learn more about the senator's Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes.

"I think that Alison Grimes will drive a lot of people to Mitch McConnell," he said.

But Scott Hofstra, a Central Kentucky Tea Party Patriots chairman, said he believes many in the movement will carry a grudge against McConnell for what they perceive as lies about Bevin and for harsh comments he made concerning the tea party.

"They're living in a fantasy world," Hofstra said of Paul and McConnell.

Among the things that angered them most was a quote from McConnell reported by the conservative website Breitbart last November in which he likened the tea party to "bullies. … you know how you deal with schoolyard bullies? You punch them in the nose and that's what we're going to do."

"He's got a 30-year record in the Senate and he publicly came out and said he was going to crush us, punch us in the nose, and try to destroy everything we've done," said Hofstra. "He's not going to get us back."

McConnell said that following Paul's divisive primary in 2010 against former Secretary of State Trey Grayson, 91 percent of GOP voters supported Paul in the general election. He predicted that would happen in this race.

He said he was encouraged when groups like the Madison Project and the Senate Conservatives Fund, which had endorsed Bevin in the primary, announced Tuesday that they would back McConnell in November.

Paul said he wants to be the guy who unites the party for McConnell.

"We're excited to have our Republican Party all pulling together for our nominee, thus we see this with almost a patriotic fervor in the sense that we think Kentucky needs to be defended against the policies of President Obama and we think the only way that Kentucky can have a fighting chance is to have someone who will stand up to President Obama. …

"In 2010 when I ran a contentious primary we pulled together quickly (and) Sen. McConnell was helpful in bringing the party together. I hope to play that role this time," Paul said.

But former U.S. Rep. Mike Ward, D-Louisville, said he believes the dynamics are very different now. He said Grayson voters in the 2010 primary were party establishment types who are the most reliable GOP voters.

McConnell's opponents this year are angry voters who aren't nearly as likely to back the senator, he said. "Bevin supporters are already disaffected party members who are the least likely to listen to establishment types, hold their noses and vote for Mitch," he said.

Meanwhile, Grimes began Friday to try to woo voters who backed Bevin in the primary, issuing an open letter to "the 40% of Republicans who voted against Senator Mitch McConnell and independents across the commonwealth."

In the letter, Grimes warns potential voters that McConnell told lies about Bevin and that he'll make things up about her as well.

"Senator McConnell and his Washington lobbyist friends said a lot of negative untrue things about Matt Bevin and his family," she wrote. "He will try that same strategy on me. I hope you will take the time to get to know who I am and my true positions."

Then she listed ways that she and those voters agree, including the fact that none of them believe that Washington, D.C, is working to help Kentucky.

"I ask that you keep an open mind because I believe, despite the millions of dollars in TV ads, you will come to learn that you and I share a love of country and the Commonwealth," she wrote.

Bevin responded later in an open letter to Grimes saying she doesn't have the answers that conservatives are looking for, but he stopped short of endorsing McConnell.

"Kentucky and America do need real change. The change we need, however, is very different from the proposed platform of government expansion that I have seen from your campaign thus far," he wrote.

Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at (502) 582-4702. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Gerth.