M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO 'Guerrilla': McConnell's challenger

Today, POLITICO begins a yearlong series from the road on the hottest races of 2014. First up: A two-part look at the primary and general election challenges to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the top target of tea party conservatives and national Democrats.


LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For Matt Bevin, the rookie Senate candidate taking on one of the most powerful Republicans in the country — and possibly the most ruthless — every day on the stump brings a new hazing.

There was the time before he even jumped into the race against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell when Bevin was warned he’d be shunned by fellow churchgoers once McConnell was finished making mincemeat of his reputation. Campaign trackers follow Bevin constantly, recording his every public utterance to turn the slightest slip into an attack ad or Web video. Vendors and consultants one day say they’re ready to come on board only to ominously reverse course the next, after mulling the repercussions of crossing McConnell.

“I’ve had people who’ve said, ‘You can use our donor list’ or ‘I’ll come on with the campaign,’” Bevin said during a recent daylong campaign excursion around Louisville. “Then all of a sudden they change their minds.”

Some have told him they were warned “it will be the last job you ever have in this business” if they joined his campaign, he said.

( PHOTOS: Kentucky Senate race: Mitch McConnell)

“It is thuggery,” Bevin added. “It’s literally like something out of Tammany Hall. It’s dusting off Boss Tweed. I say bring it on.”

Bevin realizes no party leader has ever gone down in a primary; he knows the prevailing wisdom in Washington is that he has no chance, and that his only purpose is to damage McConnell heading into a tough general election against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. No incumbent has a bigger target on his back this year than McConnell — a host of tea party groups and the entire Democratic Party both want nothing more than to defeat him — and Bevin’s performance could go a long way in determining whether the minority leader survives to serve a sixth term and possibly become majority leader.

Bevin credibly invokes a Horatio Alger-like life story on the trail. Grew up on a New Hampshire farm in a family of eight with a single toilet and a wood-burning stove to heat the three-bedroom home. Worked his way through college on an ROTC scholarship and rose to the rank of U.S. Army captain. Self-made millionaire businessman and investor. Father of nine, including four adopted from Ethiopia.

Yet none of those feats could have prepared the 47-year-old, tea party-backed Republican for the self-inflicted endurance test he is currently experiencing taking on McConnell.

( PHOTOS: Senators up for election in 2014)

Down 20-plus percentage points in polls — an improvement, Bevin notes in his characteristically upbeat manner, from the 40-point deficit he faced last summer — his immediate task is to convince people not that he will win the May 20 primary, just that it’s not totally inconceivable he could.

“Statistically, even now, it’s crazy long odds, but the tide is turning,” he said. “I’ve always been a risk taker, but I’m a calculated risk taker.”

“I’m going to be the Republican nominee,” McConnell countered flatly last week, when asked about Bevin and criticism that the 71-year-old Republican leader isn’t conservative enough for Kentucky GOP primary voters.

Asked if he wanted to weigh in on Bevin’s candidacy, McConnell said only: “I don’t.”

In the meantime, Bevin, who is prone to military metaphors when he talks about his campaign, is content to play the happy warrior — a first-time candidate with low expectations out to defy the naysayers and prove he can withstand the full brunt of the McConnell machine.

( QUIZ: How well do you know Mitch McConnell?)

“Hooah!” Bevin exclaims — Army shorthand for “fired up” — every time he hops into his campaign SUV. Perhaps taking a page from former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, it’s a 2001 Chevy Suburban boasting 152,000 miles on its odometer, a cracked driver-side mirror and windshield wiper fluid that wouldn’t dispense on an icy night, forcing Bevin to use a water bottle.

Later, he describes his mission against the minority leader this way: “I’m like the guerrilla. He doesn’t know where I am. He’s defending the perimeter as best as he can. He knows I’m out there somewhere but he can’t figure out what direction.”

Bevin is taking on the man whose name adorns the state GOP headquarters. “The Leader,” as McConnell’s team refers to him, has the backing of the Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association and super PACs managed by former aides. At the end of September, McConnell had about $10 million in his campaign account.

Even Sen. Rand Paul, who defeated McConnell’s handpicked primary candidate in 2010, has endorsed the Republican leader — though he has declined to criticize Bevin.

( Also on POLITICO: FreedomWorks backs Bevin)

Bevin believes there’s still a path against McConnell — who remains highly unpopular despite his perch — especially if the major conservative outside groups step up in a big way. There’s cause for encouragement: The Senate Conservatives Fund has already spent more than a half-million dollars supporting Bevin, more than for any other candidate. The Madison Project promises to open five field offices to mobilize volunteers. And FreedomWorks endorsed him on Wednesday.

A dozen people are working for Bevin’s campaign but he never hired a manager. His general consultant, Mark Harris, managed Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey’s 2010 victory and is working for two other conservative primary challengers this year.

Bevin believes he needs to raise $4 million to win the primary. Last week, he announced a $900,000 haul during the fourth quarter. He spent $600,000 of his own money to get the campaign off the ground last summer.

Bevin’s message boils down to this: He is the true constitutional conservative in the race. He criticizes McConnell for voting to raise the debt ceiling and back the Wall Street bailout, as well as the minority leader’s long history of seeking earmarks. And Bevin says he could have done more to stop the implementation of Obamacare without shutting down the government.

“I don’t think that he’s a conservative at all,” Bevin said. “I really don’t.”

Bevin told supporters at a campaign stop that he can win even if McConnell’s attacks resonate with a swath of voters.

“There’s 1.1 million registered Republicans in the state of Kentucky,” Bevin told them. “If we see a phenomenally healthy turnout, we’re going to see a turnout of 35 to 40 percent. … If we do, we’re talking about 350,000 voters, … which means we need 175,001 to turn the page. … We need about 16 out of 100 registered Republicans to actually turn out and vote to make a difference.”

In D.C.’s Republican circles, Bevin is generally regarded as a wealthy tea party ideologue. But up close, the portrait doesn’t quite match. Bevin speaks more like the businessman he is than a fire-breathing conservative; stylistically, he’s more Mitt Romney than Ted Cruz.

Asked about entitlements during a radio interview, he started with the sort of lengthy disclaimer about protecting benefits for seniors that one might expect from an establishment favorite.

In fact, it was only a few years ago that Washington Republicans tried recruiting Bevin to challenge Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth.

“They’ve been trying forever to get me to run,” he said, “but as soon as you dare to run against them, then suddenly you’re persona non grata.”

That’s one way of putting it.

Bevin has been a man under siege since he launched his campaign in July. McConnell immediately unleashed a six-figure ad buy attacking Bevin for seeking a government “bailout” to help rebuild his family’s bell factory in Connecticut after it burned down. The senator’s campaign later held a conference call to suggest Bevin may have broken the law by checking a box on the grant application that said the business had no outstanding tax liens when, in fact, it did. It later reamed him for suggesting on his LinkedIn page that he had earned a master’s degree from MIT — .

Bevin dismisses the negative stories about him as “basically slanderous kicks in the head.” He took over the bell business from his uncle in 2008 when it was on the verge of bankruptcy, and he checked the box saying there were no tax liens because a payment plan had been agreed to. Bevin updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect that he attended an executive education program not officially affiliated with MIT, just offered at a facility owned by the university.

After the consulting firm Jamestown Associates made a pro-Bevin commercial for the Senate Conservatives Fund, the National Republican Senatorial Committee — an official party committee over which McConnell exerts substantial influence — announced that the firm would be cut off from getting future business.

Bevin insists the hardball tactics of McConnell and his allies don’t scare him.

“There’s literally nothing in my life that, if it were on the front page of a newspaper, would bother me,” he said. “I’m a rare person who is fortunate enough to say that.”

But McConnell’s campaign does manage to get under Bevin’s skin at times. The trackers — or “stalkers,” as he prefers to call them — are a particular irrititant.

After Bevin explained his opposition to raising the minimum wage and attacked the Department of Education during a town hall at a Mexican restaurant, he publicly pointed out that the woman taping him checked to make sure her camera was rolling.

“It’s so funny,” he said. “There are certain things that just get them extra excited.”

At another point, Bevin was pressed in a radio interview about a National Review piece titled “Bevin’s Moderate Side.” It was based on tracker footage that showed him praising former Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill for working across the aisle.

“It sounds like sometimes you think compromise is perfect and then you chastise Mitch McConnell for compromising on various deals,” the host, Terry Meiners, said.

Bevin complained about the game of “gotcha,” saying he supports compromise as long as principles aren’t compromised.

The first question at the town hall came from a woman who wondered whether “all the smears” are “sticking.” Bevin’s answer lasted seven minutes, longer than his answers to the 27 questions that followed over the next two hours.

In the final car ride of a long day, Bevin opened up about the death of his 17-year-old daughter Brittiney in a 2003 car accident. He explained how the unimaginable task of thinking about what should be in her obituary helped make him more empathetic. She “was blessed with a compassionate heart for those who were hurting or in need. She loved her Savior, Jesus Christ, and she loved small children,” the obituary said.

The same year his daughter died, he started his own money-management firm — leaving a much bigger company and forgoing retention incentives to do so. He said his partners and others questioned his judgment.

While he initially struggled to bring in money, he said persistence helped him expand his company to manage more than $3.5 billion of assets. He sold the firm in 2010 and now invests directly in about a dozen companies.

Bevin said his business success emboldened him to go after McConnell, rather than paying his dues and waiting his turn.

“Whenever people tell me that I’m crazy, it’s when I’m on to something,” he said. “Because most people are fearful, because most people are timid, the field is not nearly as crowded. Many of those people frankly are more qualified, more capable, more experienced to succeed. But they don’t have the intestinal fortitude. They literally don’t have the stomach for it, and that’s good because it makes room for people like me.”

Manu Raju contributed to this report.