U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, greets supporters on the campaign trail. (Photo: Stephen Lance Dennee AP)
Jesse Benton, campaign manager for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is under fire after a conservative activist released an audio recording of a conversation with Benton in which he expresses personal distaste for running the Kentucky Republican's re-election effort.
"I'm sort of holding my nose for two years, 'cause what we're doing here is gonna be a big benefit to Rand (Paul) in '16, so that's my long vision," Benton says, according to the audio recording obtained by the Web site EconomicPolicyJournal.com. The conversation was allegedly recorded in January.
Benton ran Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul's successful 2010 Senate campaign, and previously worked for Ron Paul's presidential campaigns as a spokesman and top adviser. McConnell hired Benton last September to run his 2014 re-election effort in part because of Benton's credibility among the conservative base, which has grown skeptical of McConnell in recent years.
In a statement released by the McConnell campaign, Benton called the recording of a private phone conversation "truly sick" and said he is proud to lead McConnell's re-election campaign. "I believe in Senator McConnell and am 100% committed to his re-election. Being selected to lead his campaign is one of the great honors of my life and I look forward to victory in November of 2014," he said.
McConnell's primary opponent, Matt Bevin, immediately seized on the report. "(Benton's) admission that he is 'holding (his) nose for two years' while he works for McConnell shows that even McConnell's top guy realizes that his boss is not a true conservative, and after nearly 30 years of voting for big-government and big-spending bills, does not deserve to be reelected," said Bevin spokeswoman Sarah Durand.
