Kentucky State Senator Alecia Webb-Edgington thought she had a good chance to represent the Fourth District in next year’s Congress … after all she had picked up endorsements from the retiring Representative Geoff Davis and ex-U.S. Senator Jim Bunning, another former 4th District congressman. The Susan B. Anthony List, the conservative answer to EMILY’s List, to run some ads …. a Primary victory was expected but there was a little concern …
“You may have heard about this college student from Texas that’s shown up here and is trying to buy this election by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to advance his libertarian ideology and score a win for the Ron Paul movement,” Ms. Webb-Edgington told a GOP gathering in Kenton County. “It’s a shame that this young man’s gonna waste so much of his family’s hard-earned money. Because here in Kentucky we’re gonna stand united as Kentuckians and we’re gonna send him back to Texas empty-handed.”
Tuesday’s Primary Election results had Ms. Webb-Edgington was the one going home empty-handed.
The background of the story is when a Texas college student’s grandfather passed away in 2010, John Ramsey and his two siblings became millionaires overnight, inheriting holdings in real estate, timber, natural gas and other industries in separate accounts.
John Ramsey incorporated Liberty for All PAC in March, envisioning it as a political organization that could think big and win multiple elections. Grandson Ramsey seeded it with $890,000 inheritance money, and use it to tip the scales of an otherwise anonymous Republican primary 900 miles away from his home.
For the moment, Liberty for All’s main battleground is Kentucky, where it has 11 paid staffers and has selected Thomas Massie as “the” candidate for Kentucky’s Fourth District. Mr. Massie, a MIT-trained engineer turned anti-tax activist running in a state where Rand Paul, Ron’s son, cruised to victory in an open-seat Senate race two years ago. Massie’s race in many respects parallels Rand Paul’s 2010 campaign, pitting the Republican establishment against the younger, more tech-savvy Liberty For All crew.
The Liberty For All PAC has poured $542,600—almost all of it from Grandson Ramsey’s own pocket—into campaign ads. And unlike most outside groups, Liberty for All is putting hundreds of thousands of dollars into a ground game, too—splurging on direct mail and organizing get-out-the-vote and phone-banking operations.
Could a Liberty For One … err Liberty For All come to Minnesota … surely Allen Quist and Mike Parry would appreciate the support.
Every day it seems that political power is shifting away from moderate voices to those that refuse to compromise and those with the “cash” willing to invest a small portion of their wealth to ensure that their messengers stay in power.
Read more about John Ramsey’s PAC here.
