The question of whether or not Republican crustbucket Sen. Jim Bunning is planning on retiring at the end of his current term was on everyone's mind last week after word leaked out that Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson was setting up an exploratory committee for Bunning's Senate seat -- with his apparent approval. During his weekly conference call today, Bunning says that he's still planning on running again, but he's adding a major caveat. Roll Call has the scoop:
Bunning told Kentucky reporters on his weekly conference call that the only way he would abandon his re-election effort would be if he did not meet his fundraising goals later this year. [...]
As for Grayson's exploratory committee, Bunning said he recommended it so Grayson could raise money for a future political race.
"He's a dear friend, and I thought this would be a way for him not to have to travel around the state and still gather up some money for any federal office he chooses to run for," Bunning said on the call, according to WFPL news radio.
Um, right. So Bunning claims he'll run again, as long as he can meet his fundraising goals... which, during his last update on the topic, stood at $7 million. Considering that Bunning could only rustle up $260K in the first three months of the year, he'll have an extremely difficult time meeting that target -- especially considering how blatantly obvious it is that Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders badly want Bunning to hang up his spurs. I'm sure that this admission will give McConnell and John Cornyn extra incentive to choke off Bunning's major fundraising sources completely and redirect them to Grayson.
In other words, we might as well start considering this to be an open seat race in 2010.
"Do you know Arlen Specter will be 80, has had four bouts with cancer and he still wants to run for the U.S. Senate?" Bunning continued. "And I'm being criticized at 77 and healthy for wanting to run for the U.S. Senate by certain leadership people in my party. Give me a break."
Asked if the leadership he was referring to was McConnell, Bunning answered: "Obviously. Do you want me to spell it out for you?"
He said: "Do you realize that under our dynamic leadership of our leader, we have gone from 55 and probably to 40 (Senate seats) in two election cycles, and if the tea leaves that I read are correct, we will wind up with about 36 after this election cycle. So if leadership means anything, it means you don't lose... approximately 19 seats in three election cycles with good leadership."
