Would win make Paul life of tea party?

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - Upstart candidate Rand Paul said that a clear-cut victory by him in Kentucky's Republican primary for U.S. Senate would be a strong showing for the tea-party movement, which has flexed its muscles already in other races across the country.

The mood of the country and the Republican Party strengthen his position heading into Tuesday's race. He said that the outcome will carry clear national implications.

"I think the larger the victory the more the mandate for the tea party," he said.

The tea party movement already helped defeat three-term Sen. Bob Bennett in Utah and forced Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to abandon the GOP to make an independent run for the Senate.

His main rival in the hard-fought Senate primary, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, spent the day campaigning in heavily Republican southeastern Kentucky, a region that's expected to be key.

Grayson is backed by Kentucky's most powerful Republican, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. Paul has the backing of Kentucky's other Republican senator, Jim Bunning, who is retiring after two terms.

A political outsider, Paul entered the race as a long shot against Grayson, who has long been considered a rising star in the Kentucky GOP. An antiestablishment mood that swept the country quickly turned the tables in favor of Paul, who leads some polls by double-digits.

Paul, the son of Texas congressman and former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, said that he has the clear momentum heading into the election.

"The mood of the country is in our favor," Paul said in an interview at his campaign headquarters in his hometown of Bowling Green, where volunteers busily worked the phones. "The mood of the Republican Party is in our favor. The tea party movement is enormous and in our favor. . . . Just at every turn everything has gone our way."

Grayson, the state's chief election official, said that he isn't convinced that polls showing Paul up by double digits are accurate because of dynamics peculiar to Kentucky Republican politics. He said that statewide turnout will be only about 30 percent in the primary, which makes regional Republican pockets like southeastern Kentucky key to the outcome.

Turnout in some counties in the region, Grayson said, could be 50 percent to 60 percent because of a large number of local races on the ballots. Southeastern Kentucky, Grayson said, could account for a third of the votes cast in the Senate.

Paul, a small-town eye doctor, attended church with his family in Bowling Green but planned no other public appearances just two days before the election. After months of campaigning, he said that he planned to take a relaxing bike ride later in the day if the rainy weather cleared.

He said in an interview, "I'd be very surprised if things didn't go our way on Tuesday."

Grayson also attended church yesterday. During a fundraiser for a volunteer fire department in Girdler in Knox County, Grayson told the crowd that he has the endorsement of two Washington lawmakers who are popular in the region, U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers and McConnell. Both endorsed Grayson over Paul in an unusual and some say divisive move.

Paul has said that he may not support McConnell if he faces opposition for GOP leader in the Senate.