--- title: Why Senate Republicans Want to Bench Jim Bunning description: It was only four years ago that Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky stood in front of a buoyant crowd of victorious Republicans at a Lincoln... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6936832/why-senate-republicans-want-to-bench-jim-bunning/ author: Michael Lindenberger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2009-03-07T05:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-22T07:27:49.091Z article:section: Politics og:title: Why Senate Republicans Want to Bench Jim Bunning og:description: It was only four years ago that Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky stood in front of a buoyant crowd of victorious Republicans at a Lincoln... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6936832/why-senate-republicans-want-to-bench-jim-bunning/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb8b038cd895216a/698a4ee7d075338066e70019/360_bunning_0304.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_bunning_0304.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Senate Republicans Want to Bench Jim Bunning twitter:description: It was only four years ago that Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky stood in front of a buoyant crowd of victorious Republicans at a Lincoln... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb8b038cd895216a/698a4ee7d075338066e70019/360_bunning_0304.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Politics](/section/politics/) # Why Senate Republicans Want to Bench Jim Bunning > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=d30db7f7-293d-48dc-b52c-87c37bba3168&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [Michael Lindenberger](https://time.com/author/michael-lindenberger/) Mar 7, 2009 5:00 AM UTC  Senate Budget Committee member Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky. asks a question of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, not shown, during his testimony before the committee, Tuesday, March 3, 2009, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Senate Budget Committee member Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky. asks a question of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, not shown, during his testimony before the committee, Tuesday, March 3, 2009, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Susan Walsh / AP by [Michael Lindenberger](https://time.com/author/michael-lindenberger/) Mar 7, 2009 5:00 AM UTC It was only four years ago that [Sen. Jim Bunning](http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1183986,00.html) of Kentucky stood in front of a buoyant crowd of victorious Republicans at a Lincoln Day dinner in Louisville and broke down in tears about his friend [Mitch McConnell](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1849130%5F1849126%5F1853514,00.html). “I hope everybody here understands how much he stuck his neck out for me through thick and thin during that race last year,” Bunning, 77, said pointing to Kentucky’s senior senator, the number two Senate Republican at the time and the key architect of the GOP’s astonishing ascendancy in the state over the previous decade. McConnell, 67, had indeed spent much of the final weeks of Bunning’s 2004 re-election campaign on a tour bus, telling crowds across the Bluegrass State that Kentucky, and America, needed Jim Bunning in the Senate. The race was one of the closest, costliest, and nastiest for Senate in Kentucky history, and Bunning ultimately only won a second term with less than 51% of the votes. During the campaign the famously irascible Hall of Fame pitcher had endured repeated questions about his age and even his mental stability, and had stood by while supporters called his opponent limp-wristed. Always prone to outlandish statements, Bunning himself made news when he said his opponent Daniel Mongiardo, then a state senator and now a lieutenant governor expected to run for the seat in 2010, looked like “one of Saddam Hussein’s sons.” In 2006, TIME named Bunning one of America’s worst senators. ([See America’s best and worst senators.](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1184028,00.html)) But in the four years since that triumphant, emotional dinner, everything has changed for Republicans, both in Washington and Kentucky — and that includes the relationship between Bunning and McConnell, which is visibly strained. Now the minority leader in the Senate, McConnell knows that Democrats will likely be just one seat away from a filibuster-proof 60 seats by the midterm elections of 2010, and Bunning is an especially vulnerable incumbent. Louisville, the city where Bunning praised McConnell four years ago, now has a liberal Democrat in the House, and the Republican governor McConnell helped elect in 2003 was turned out in a rout in 2007\. “For McConnell this is a matter of doing what’s right, though for others it might be seen as doing what’s politically advantageous,” Al Cross, the dean of political commentators in Kentucky and the director of the Institute for Rural Jounalism at the University of Kentucky, told TIME. “But he is not going to let friendship get in the way here. His job is to see that a Republican gets re-elected.” ([See the top 10 unfortunate political one-liners.](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1859513%5F1859526,00.html)) The cracks in the relationship began to show in January, when McConnell — fresh off [his own surprisingly tough re-election battle](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1849130%5F1849126%5F1853514,00.html) — told the National Press Club that he would wait to comment on the 2010 race until Bunning “had made his intentions clear.” That prompted a furious response from Bunning, who suggested McConnell has either lost his memory or his honesty. “He knew very well what my intentions are,” he said in a conference call with reporters the next day. Since then Bunning has found himself even more isolated. Party leaders in Washington met with a potential primary opponent, David Williams, a McConnell ally who is the whip-smart and baldly partisan president of the Kentucky senate. Last month, Bunning called Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who will lead efforts to re-elect GOP senators in 2010, a liar after Cornyn denied he was recruiting an alternative candidate to Bunning. Just for good measure, he also threatened to sue the party if they did indeed recruit a candidate to run against Bunning. [See pictures of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal.](http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/10questions/0,30255,1882855,00.html) [See George W. Bush’s biggest economic mistakes.](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1872229%5F1872230,00.html) Kentuckians have come to expect outrageous statements from Bunning. When the Ohio River flooded parts of Louisville in 1997, Bunning, then a state representatitve from Northern Kentucky, blamed the devastation on the city’s failure to raise its flood walls, only to have to apologize when the storm-weary city leaders pointed out that the walls had been up for days. In 2004, he claimed, without any support, that an opponent’s staffer had beaten his wife and he at a political event; during that same campaign he reminded voters he had run before with George Bush on the ticket, and would win again with him on it, despite the fact that Bush had been governor of Texas in 1998\. Most recently he practically predicted the imminent death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is being treated for pancreatic cancer, though he subsequently apologized. ([See the screwups of Campaign ’08.](http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1643290%5F1643292,00.html)) But the heated rhetoric he has used in recent weeks towards his own party has shocked some of his longtime observers. Just last week, Bunning reportedly told party donors that if the party kept pressuring him, he would simply quit and allow the Democratic governor of Kentucky to appoint his replacement. He has since denied the claims, and did so to TIME again this week through a spokesman. But the Louisville _Courier-Journal_, the state’s leading newspaper, has stuck with its story, citing three sources who say they heard Bunning make the threat. Given the GOP’s precarious position, it’s a threat that not even McConnell can afford to take lightly, and the war may be entering a truce. Few figures in the state have publicly taken sides, and Williams has been silent about his intentions. But the prospect of war between Bunning’s camp and McConnell’s has kept party activists in Kentucky fretting. “Everyone is focused on winning,” said Republican strategist Scott Jennings of Louisville, a member of the state party’s executive committee and a former Bush White House aide. “No one doubts Jim Bunning’s conservative positions, or that he has been a staunch conservative voice in the Senate. But Republicans are looking at the tactics and the machinery needed to run and win a campaign in 2010, and that’s where the questions are.” ([See pictures from the Republican National Convention.](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1838049,00.html)) In fact, Bunning’s reliably — and defiantly — conservative voting record is largely in tune with Kentucky’s reddest voters, the same folks who will decide the primary in 2010\. His fervent opposition to the bank bailout increasingly looks smart, at least in the minds of many in Kentucky who are unimpressed with the economic recovery plans. Strongly against abortion and gay marriage, Bunning was rated last year as the third most conservative senator by the _National Journal_. Fresh on the minds of Kentucky Republicans, and probably McConnell, too, is the race McConnell just won. He spent $20 million, three times the record-setting $6 million Bunning raised in 2004, and by the time the votes were counted found himself more than $2 million in debt. There’s no reason to suspect that a race in 2010 will be any cheaper, Jennings said. With Democrats in power in Washington, competitive candidates like Mongiardo can expect a torrent of money, while Bunning’s campaign war chest is lacking. With less than $200,000 raised for the 2010 race, even Bunning’s supporters are concerned, according to Jennings. Experts say Bunning could still raise enough money; since McConnell’s famed money machine was working overtime for his own campaign, and the party also just endured a bruising (and losing) 2007 campaign to re-elect former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, it’s no surprise that Bunning hasn’t been able to raise much yet. McConnell and Bunning will come together this Saturday for another Lincoln Day dinner in Corbin, a hard-scrabble town in the eastern Kentucky mountains. They are likely to play nice, but McConnell may still see a man who can’t win in 2010\. If so, Bunning will make sure it’s a problem that belongs to McConnell as much as it does to himself. [See pictures of 60 years of election night drama.](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1856066%5F1792282,00.html) [See the top 10 Secret Service code names.](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1860482%5F1860481,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6936832/why-senate-republicans-want-to-bench-jim-bunning/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6936832/why-senate-republicans-want-to-bench-jim-bunning/"},"headline":"Why Senate Republicans Want to Bench Jim Bunning","datePublished":"2009-03-07T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-22T07:27:49.091Z","description":"It was only four years ago that Sen. 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