He coached MIT's cock fighting team !

The Washington pundit class will point to Mitch McConnell's lopsided win over Matt Bevin as a loss for the Tea Party. Nonsense! Things have changed since 2010 but in this particular race Matt Bevin was no Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell was no Trey Grayson. There are no polls on the Tea Party's strength in the Kentucky Republican Party but Bevin's lamentable 35.7% share of the vote suggests he did not do well among any group including the Tea Party. Look back to 2010. Rand Paul, the little known son of a nationally known congressman was ophthalmologist in Bowling Green. Grayson was the establishment candidate with supposedly a clear run to the nomination but when the dust settled Grayson had lost 35.4% to 58.8%, almost a mirror image of tonight's results.
Matt Bevin is not exactly the California Chrome of Kentucky politicians. He would struggle in a $2,000 claiming race. He is little more than a snake oil salesman with an Obamaesque arrogance that allows him to think he can lie his way out of everything and his campaign was nothing short of a litany of half truths and patent falsehoods. The voters are not stupid but Bevin treated them as gullible rubes when he listed MIT as his education on his Linkedin profile. Then there was the financial report from his hedge fund that endorsed the TARP bailout and bore his signature. He could has confessed and claimed an epiphany but rather he attempted to pass it off as some pro forma document he signed without reading. Keep that in mind if you are inclined to put money in his fund now that he is probably back in the investment business. Finally Bevin was reduced to trolling a cock fighting rally for votes. When confronted by a reporter he tried to spin it as a states' right issue suggesting that cockfighting was something the Founding Fathers were “very actively involved with…and always have been.”
That may be good enough for Michael Vick fans but not for anyone with an IQ larger than a carrot's.
Rand Paul drew huge crowds of enthusiastic voters. He was new, he was exciting, he was truthful and he did not pander. I remember one perceptive voter remarking that Trey Grayson began every speech with a reference to the Kentucky Derby or to Kentucky Wildcats basketball. Paul never did. He never went for the easy applause. Bevin could not even do that.
Whether Tea Party or mainstream Republican it is hard to be to the right of McConnell. The American Conservative Union gives him a 90% lifetime rating. This Congressional Quarterly index based on 2013 votes gives him a score of of 67 compared to Paul's 69. Tea Party favorites Marco Rubio scores 62, Deb Fischer, 60, and Kelly Ayotte a mere 50.
Having watched Richard Mourdock fumble three congressional and one county councilman's race I was dismayed when the Tea Party endorsed him in his successful campaign against Dick Lugar. In this post, almost a year out from the general election I predicted he would lose to Joe Donnelly if he defeated Lugar. I take no satisfaction in being right but if the PACs and pundits would be a bit more selective with their endorsements McConnell would be the Majority Leader. Bevin was no Tea Party ideologue before the election and he will not be now that he has lost. He was just an opportunist trying to gain entry to the political establishment. Good riddance!
The Democrats have a very attractive candidate in Alison Lundergan Grimes. She would have mulched Bevin and where it not for Obama's war on coal I would make her the favorite but Kentucky voters are not apt to send the President any help.

Update:

I just came across this Survey USA poll that was released May 16. McConnell lead among self identified conservatives 58% to Bevin's 35%. Notice that McConnell did especially well among Republicans earning less than $40,000 per year.