As you know, my friend and colleague Mitch McConnell has just won the Kentucky Republican Primary and is poised to become the next Majority Leader of the United States Senate. Mitch has boldly led the Republicans in the Senate against Barack Obama’s liberal agenda and he needs your help to keep the fight going against Harry Reid, President Obama, and their hand-picked candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes in November. The momentum gained by Republicans here in Kentucky will allow us to fire Harry Reid, vote to repeal Obamacare, and make Mitch the next Majority Leader of the United States Senate.

With Mitch McConnell in the Senate, Kentucky is leading America. He is fighting for our Eastern Kentucky coal families against Barack Obama’s War on Coal. He is fighting for our small-business owners burdened by the crippling costs of Obamacare and high taxes. He is fighting for our middle-class families who are hurting under the failed policies of the Obama Administration. Your financial support is crucial to keep Mitch fighting for Kentucky families. Please contribute what you can to his Republican Victory Moneybomb today.

[...]

You can always count on Mitch to stand strong for our conservative principles. Not only does he have my full support, he is also endorsed by the American Conservative Union, National Right to Life, and the National Rifle Association.

My Republican colleagues in the Senate are rallying behind Mitch because we know his leadership has kept our party strong and united. Not only did he ensure every Senate Republican voted against the disaster that was Obamacare, but he has led us in the fight to repeal it and helped stop the liberals in their tracks last year when they tried to force gun control on the American people. As conservatives, we must unite around Mitch and send a strong message to the Barack Obama liberals who want to impose their values on us in Kentucky. The liberals have made him their number one target this November because they know they know he is Barack Obama’s biggest obstacle in the Senate. I am committed to backing Mitch all the way to a great Republican victory this November.

I hope you will join him now by contributing to his Republican Victory Moneybomb. While President Obama needs Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky and the nation need Mitch McConnell.

Best,

Rand Paul

I've long been a supporter of yours, despite some policy disagreements, but I'd like to point out that, in this missive, you're either lying or just plain delusional.

Mitch McConnell has vowed to "crush" the TEA Party, the very voters -- that is, we, the people -- responsible for giving the GOP back the House and narrowing the Senate gap. In fact, you yourself were a TEA Party candidate swept into office on the wave McConnell and his lackeys look to see dissipated and regulated by the EPA.

As a Senator, McConnell has done nothing to promote conservatism other than position himself to look conservative when voting allows him to do so. He is a Ford acolyte. He is an entrenched member of a corrupt ruling class who cares more about keeping upstarts out of "his" august chamber than he does about defeating the march ever leftward. McConnell supports big government. He thrives on it. He cares about his own power and station and not much else -- unless you count his being able to wield that power and station to diminish and marginalize conservatives. And while yes, he would love to be Majority Leader in the Senate, how would that help the cause of conservatism? He's had 30 years to show he was something more than an establishment climber and has done precious little to do so.

He is not entitled to his seat, nor is any incumbent. And the corporatism and crony capitalism that is rampant in Congress -- among both parties and at the expense of the tax payer -- should have any real TEA Party member irate. We are no longer working in a system beholden to the consent of the governed. Instead, we are working within a system run on quid pro quo between big-monied donors and the entrenched ruling class politicians who receive campaign donations in exchange for corporate welfare and the essential attack on a free market system, rewarding big business with laws that constrain competition.

If politicians like Mitch McConnell or Orrin Hatch or John McCain or Lindsey Graham, et al., spoke any more out of both sides of their mouths, they'd risk lopping their own heads off.

I understand -- at least, on an intellectual level -- the political pressures of supporting a high-ranking GOP establishment leader, particularly one from your own state. Just as I did when Sarah Palin (unfortunately) endorsed John McCain, I read your endorsement of McConnell as a kind of show of gratitude, a necessary evil. And I have to: because to believe you'd actually support, without those pressures, such an entrenched, big government, meanspirited climber and career politician -- one who rejoices in the defeat of conservatives he and his big monied interests have vowed to crush -- over a would-be citizen legislator who would work not for his own benefit but rather to help re-establish constitutional republicanism, is simply too dispiriting to think about.

Mitch McConnell not only doesn't deserve a dime of my money, but he doesn't deserve a moment of my time or an ounce of my support.

Frankly, I think a day of reckoning is coming for the Republican Party. I suspect more and more conservatives will stay home during national elections in which they are forced to back some establishment candidate -- having been shamed into getting behind the team rather than moping over primary losses fueled by the flow of money, long-time name recognition, an under-informed voting population, and the disinformation peddled by the king makers.

The sad truth of which is that it wouldn't even matter to Mitch McConnell, because whether his party wins or loses, he still retains his status as the highest ranking GOP Senator, and with that comes all sort of perks.

And that's what he's about.

It's time -- and I say this with great sorrow -- to let the GOP sink, at least on the national level.

A man who infamously claimed that "the era of Reagan was over" -- only to be struck by reality in the 2010 elections -- is no friend to constitutionalism. Because rather than treating his myopia as a wake up call, he has instead treated it as the impetus to put down the upstarts -- we, the people -- before we become too meddlesome inside the comfortably incestuous DC fraternity.

There's a reason Nancy Pelosi opined for the old days, when the TEA Party candidates didn't muck up the works, and when she was able to work comfortably with Republicans. And that's because the GOP statists have allowed the country to drift ever leftward, even during years when they controlled the entirety of the government.

So no. I won't support Mitch McConnell. And frankly, I think that any conservative who does out of some commitment to "team" is simply showing the ruling class that, in the end, the sheep will follow their self-appointed shepherds no matter how much those shepherds despise the majority of their flock.

I may not actively support McConnell's Democratic opponent. But were I a Kentucky Republican, I'd sit out this election entirely. Mitch McConnell wishes to crush those of us whom he is supposed to be serving? Fine. Then let him win without our help.

The same goes for Jeb Bush or Chris Christie or whomever the GOP kingmakers decide to foist on us next.

It may be time to burn the village in order to save it. Or perhaps better put, it may be time to allow the village to burn rather than pick up a pail of water and rush to its aid to keep it from dying altogether. I have no interest in those whose interest in me starts and stops with my vote.

And I suspect I'm not alone, though my propensity for saying these things aloud has lost me more friends on my side than it has won me any over. Much the pity.

All of which is a rather lengthy way of telling you, with all due respect, Senator Paul, that Mitch McConnell can go fuck himself sideways with a frozen swordfish -- and if you feel the need to strap it on to make him feel less like he's simply masturbating, that's your call.

But count me out.

Regards,