It’s pretty hard to walk away from the ad without thinking “debonair badass who makes no bones about wanting to beat the hell out of Obama”. It’s really interesting in that it plays off of his wealth and “elite” status by portraying him with Randian overtones and reveling in this feature, instead of trying to out-sob story or out-”real America” the other candidates, which would have been impossible with his background.

I’m a Gorman guy, but I have to admit, it was one of the better ads I’d seen.

Disclaimer: I am a non-paid volunteer for him, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Kelly’s been with the Tucson Tea Party from the beginning, starting out as a concerned citizen (yes, an actually concerned citizen, not a politician looking to cash in on the label), and then becoming more involved as a politician. He hasn’t been flawless, but of our citizen candidates, he has been the most polished and on-message. (Consider what we have seen thus far from Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, both of whom we should nevertheless support, and contrast to the lack of controversy we’ve seen from Kelly, even though he’s been at it longer than either of them.) He’s a very decent, sharp, low-key, guy in person, and while he doesn’t have Paul Ryan-like brilliance, he is obviously in command of the facts, and could definitely be counted on to be an articulate and intelligent conservative “happy warrior”. While he isn’t quite a wonk, he’s as close as it gets while still being part of the Tea Party “citizen candidate” movement; for those of you who don’t like wonks, this is a good thing in the case of our citizen candidates. He’s broadly supportive of states’ rights, and has stated his support for entitlement reform (which is the big issue confronting us long-term). He is solid on gun control and our Constitution. He hasn’t talked much about social issues one way or another (a good call in Tucson), but I asked him for his position on abortion, and his response was that he is in favor of repealing Roe vs Wade and the states handling the issue until such a time as it is tenable to introduce an amendment. In an attitude that is mistakenly seen as “cocky and freewheeling” by Politico (rebutted some in the comments), you can see that he is pretty unabashedly conservative and independent from “mainstream conservatism”, and that he makes no bones about it (a welcome bit of news, considering how it has strayed from the Clinton impeachment onwards). He’s pretty much the antithesis of the stereotype of the liberal elite, but he has been admirably restrained in his populist rhetoric (unlike someone like Huck).

From a purely rational public choice point of view, Jesse Kelly lives or dies by the Tea Party movement: he is banking on their mobilization to win, and on their support to stay in office. Therefore, one can expect that though he might be unsympathetic to arguments about cutting Medicare (though not moreso than the average senior-beholden politician, meaning All Of Them), he is going to be tons better than the current batch. he will probably be somewhere between Jeff Flake and, say, a reliable conservative on Capital Hill, and would likely support the vast majority of real, non-radical cuts to government (which is about as good as it gets on the public choice front). The various interest groups that have backed him are almost uniformly dedicated to reducing government expenditures, besides various defense conservative endorsements.

On that note, I’m glad that he has both been “in the thick of it” as a Marine, and that he hasn’t been inundated by endorsements from defense conservatives. He’s been in for four years (some guy showed his ignorance by snarking that it wouldn’t have been possible for Kelly to have been leading a squad with just 4 years’ experience), and is very much like most other Marines I know. He has a very Chuck DeVore-like sensibility to foreign policy (he’s somewhere in between that and Bush’s policy, which honestly isn’t a bad place to be). He would easily find a home on one of the GOP’s national security chairmanships, a good thing for nat defense cons and small government cons.

He’s not a libertarian (yes, I can hear everyone’s collective sighs of relief that aesthete hasn’t supported one of “those people” ), but he is a conservative who cares deeply about the Constitution, who sincerely wants to reverse the trend of governmental and bureaucratic onanism via your tax dollars, and who is smart and practical enough to not trip other conservatives or himself in achieving this goal. IMO, he could turn out to be as much a logistical leader in Congress towards this end in much the same way that Paul Ryan has ended up taking up the intellectual banner of conservative/libertarianism in the House. His message discipline is something to be admired and emulated, as is is non-confrontational style, and my feel is that he’ll be a leader in the Senate. In short, he’s one of the better and more authentic “citizen candidates” that have cropped up all over America.

I think that Paton will get behind him: most of their interaction hasn’t been too harsh (certainly not the slash-and-burn that we saw in FL with Scott and McCollum), and honestly, both are conservative (though Paton to a lesser extent, IMO).

for awhile. In Kelly’s case, I don’t really think he needs too much organizational help (though any help is good help, certainly). He does, OTOH, need cash. Totally winnable race pitting a Tea Party candidate against a “moderate” D, otherwise known as a conservative wet-dream. Just a little more money, and victory is eminently possible.