Rand Paul's victory also a win for Tea Party

Rand Paul, a first-time political candidate and beloved figure among Tea Party activists, captured the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky on Tuesday. Paul's triumph represents the biggest victory of the 2010 election season for the Tea Party movement, which joined forces with supporters of Paul's father, former presidential candidate Ron Paul, to overwhelm Grayson and his backers in the state's GOP establishment. The primary result levied a blow to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who tapped Grayson for the party nomination last year before Paul emerged and rode a populist wave to the front of the polls. McConnell and his influential political operation appeared powerless against the anti-establishment fervor sweeping Kentucky's Republican primary electorate. The contentious GOP campaign divided the party between mainline Republicans anxious about Paul's viability in November and grassroots conservatives furious with the Obama administration's fiscal record. Paul has campaigned on a message of vastly scaling back the size of government, calling for an end to government earmarks and the closure of the departments of Education and Agriculture. He has promised not to alter his uncompromising views in the general election...more