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Via TPM:

Tim Profitt -- the former Rand Paul volunteer who stomped on the head of a MoveOn activist -- told told local CBS station WKYT that he wants an apology from the woman he stomped and that she started the whole thing.

Yeah. Seriously.

The woman, 23-year-old Lauren Valle from Washington D.C., appeared to be following a specific set of instructions detailed on MoveOn.org's website designed to attract media attention. Profitt claims he believed Paul was in danger from the woman and that he acted to protect the candidate, but the campaign has condemned Profitt's actions. "I put my foot on her, and I did push her down at the very end, and I told her to stay down," Proffitt said, "I actually put my foot on her to... I couldn't bend over because I have issues with my back."

Lexington Police began an assault investigation identifying Profitt as a suspect. "Well I'll just say it, if the police had done what they were supposed to do, it would have never happened," Profitt said.

The Paul campaign is not alone in its reaction. Another man involved in the altercation, Mike Pezzano, who held down Ms. Valle, tells NEWSFIRST he doesn't condone Profitt's actions. Valle has said she believes Paul supporters planned an attack on her. Pezzano asked not to appear on camera for an interview, but he denies that accusation and says he barely knows Profitt and didn't even know Profitt was there. As for Profitt, he remains defiant. "I don't think it's that big of a deal," Profitt said.

And when asked if he would apologize to Valle. "I would like for her to apologize to me to be honest with you," Profitt said.

A spokesperson for MoveOn.org says Lauren Valle has been released from the hospital and is recovering from injuries including a concussion and a sprained shoulder and arm.

Although Profitt didn't want his face shown in the newsclip above he had no such qualms being photographed with Rand Paul. Funny about that.

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This is one of the best exchanges in yesterday's Kentucky Senate debate. When asked a straightforward question, Rand Paul cannot come right out and say Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional, though he claims he "never said that".

He also reveals himself as a tenther, which by itself contradicts his claim that he doesn't want to see Medicare and Social Security abolished by Supreme Court reversals of established case law.

I'll bet someone can find a video or transcript where he does say Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional. I'd be willing to lay odds on it.

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As Scarce already noted, it looks like Jack Conway's recent ad going after Rand Paul really got under his skin. They went back and forth over the ad several times during the debate and at the end, Rand Paul refused to shake hands with Jack Conway and walked off the stage in a snit.

Update: TPM has a great post up summarizing some of the back and forth during the debate which you can read here -- Rand Paul To Jack Conway: 'You Demean Kentucky'. And here's the video to go along with their post.

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I'll just add that other than Paul looking completely rattled by Conway's recent ad, I think Conway did a really good job over all during the debate. He hit Rand Paul time after time for his extremist views that he's been trying to walk back during the campaign. You can watch the entire debate at C-SPAN's web site here.

The race in Kentucky for the open senate seat took another strange twist as the Jack Conway campaign put out a little ad that seems to have gotten the Rand Paul campaign's knickers in a twist. The genesis for the ad seems to have originated in this Politico story last week, which was an update of a story from earlier this summer. From the Herald-Ledger in Lexington:

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Jack Conway questions the religious faith of his Republican opponent, Rand Paul, in a new television ad launched Saturday.

“Why was Rand Paul a member of a secret society that calls the Holy Bible a hoax …?” asks the ad. “Why did Rand Paul once tie a woman up. Tell her to bow down before a false idol and say his God was Aqua Buddha?”

Paul’s campaign immediately attacked the ad, saying Conway “stepped way over the line” in “a shameful and despicable ad that questions Dr. Paul’s Christian faith.”

UPDATE: I've no idea how this plays in Kentucky but it seems to have gotten under Rand Paul's skin as tonight in their debate in Louisville Paul mentioned it twice, and even in his closing remarks. Rand Paul also refused to shake Conway's hand, which is customary after a debate. Normally when a politician pulls these kind of stunts he loses. We'll see.

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Republican candidate for Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul said Sunday that he would support raising the age of Social Security eligibility if he is elected.

"We do have to admit that we have a baby boom generation getting ready to retire and we will double the amount of retirees," Paul told Fox News Chris Wallace. "To put our head in the sand and say we're going to keep borrowing more money is not going to work. There will have to be changes for the younger generation."

"For the younger generation, there will have to be changes in eligibility."

"So, you would raise the retirement age?" asked Wallace.

"There may have to be for younger people. Yes," said Paul.

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Sen. Jim DeMint may be one of Rand Paul's biggest supporters in his bid to be Senator from Kentucky but Paul has pledged his vote for Republican leader to another man.

Appearing along side his challenger, Jack Conway, on Fox News Sunday, Paul said that he would support Sen. Mitch McConnell for Republican Senate leader after the fall midterm elections.

"Would you support Kentucky's Mitch McConnell for Republican leader if you become a senator?" asked Fox News' Chris Wallace.

"Yes, I think Mitch McConnell will be the leader again and hopefully the Majority Leader this time around," answered Paul.

"And you will support him? You will vote for him?" pressed Wallace.

"Yes. Yes," said Pail.

"Not Jim DeMint, not anyone else?" wondered Wallace.

"Right. What we're having is we will have a caucus meeting and decide but I will vote for whoever comes out of the caucus as the Republican leader," replied Paul.

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In Kentucky, Democratic candidate Jack Conway is making some big gains in the polls and catching up to his Republican counterpart Rand Paul, thankfully. He joined Hardball where Chris Matthews did another one of his bullying interviews and talked over him and treated him like he was some sort of hostile witness on the stand in court. I don't know what causes Matthews to act like this other than maybe he gets some sort of thrill out of the fact that he can.

Matthews continually tried to force Conway to make personal statements about Rand Paul and others knowing full well that most politicians don't want to do that because it makes you look petty. Anyway, it's horribly annoying when Matthews constantly interrupts someone the way he did here when they're trying to answer his questions and Jack Conway managed to handle it well enough and keep his cool during the interview. If you want to support him for Senate go visit out Act Blue page and make a contribution.

Full transcript to follow.

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

Well, the latest Kentucky poll shows a tight Senate race between Republican Rand Paul, the Tea Partier, and Democrat Jack Conway, who is the attorney general of the state. Paul leads 49-47, which is nothing practically, in the new Survey USA poll. It`s a robo-poll.

But we`re joined now by the man himself, Jack Conway, attorney general of Kentucky.

General, thank you for joining us.

I have got a couple points. You have been hitting this guy, Rand Paul, on a couple issues I think are serious business. Is he getting money from racists? hand should he send it back?

JACK CONWAY: Well, good evening to you, Chris.

And we -- we called on him a few days ago to return contributions that he received from white separatists. It`s just too painful an issue for him not to return the contributions. And I think if you`re in public life, you ought to take a look at those who are contributing to you.

And it calls to mind the fact that Rand Paul has had to dismiss some staffers because of some comments they have made online. Everyone seems to remember the 20 painful minutes he had on this very network where he rejected fundamental provisions of the Civil Rights Act.

So, I think it`s on Rand Paul to make certain that he would return contributions from people who have associations with white separatist organizations.

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Kentucky Senate Democratic nominee Jack Conway gave one hell of a barnburner of a speech this weekend at their Fancy Farm event in Kentucky and called out Rand Paul for being the extremist that he is. Bronte17 at Daily KOS shared some of the tweets of the day on the event if you'd like to check that out and recommend their post if there's still time and was kind enough to post the transcript of Conway's remarks as well. More like this please from anyone running against the likes of Rand Paul and his fellow teabaggers in the south.

Conway: But the accident that the nation and Kentucky cannot allow to happen would be the election of Rand Paul.

This race presents a clear choice. A clear choice between my proven record and our responsible proposals for the future... and the risky and radical ideas of my opponent. As Kentucky's chief law enforcement officer, we've taken 70,000 child porns images off of the internet, we've gone aggessively after the drug dealers and sex predators and those who prey on our seniors. We helped shut down that prescription pill pipeline from Florida and we cracked down on the oil companies that would gauge and we increased Medicaid fraud collections by 600% by going after the drug companies that lied to us.

That's a record. That's a record of taking a public office and treating it as a public trust. And that's just what I'll do as your next United States Senator.

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After watching this interview with Kentucky Attorney General and Democratic Senatorial candidate Jack Conway, I have a feeling we won't be seeing Rand Paul coming on Hardball any time soon. After Chris Matthews discovers just how extreme Republican candidate Rand Paul's views are on civil rights among other things, he's none too happy.

Taylor Marsh has a great post on that interview with the Courier-Journal that Jack Conway was describing to Matthews. Rand Paul on Civil Rights: Private Restaurants Wouldn't Have To Serve Martin Luther King. She does a good job summing up just how out of the mainstream and frankly dangerous Paul's views are.

MATTHEWS: Attorney General Jack Conway is the Democratic nominee for Senate in Kentucky. He`ll face Republican Rand Paul in November. Congratulations, Governor. You won that tough fight from Mongiardo. Let me ask you this. What do you got on -- to put it bluntly, you must have your notion of beating Rand Paul. What`s your best case, that he`s outside the mainstream, that he`s too flaky, too tea party, whatever? What would you say?

JACK CONWAY: I`d say, just look at the statements he`s made here in the last few weeks, Chris. He`s stated that he would like to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He said that he would like to repeal the Americans With Disabilities Act and let the private marketplace take care of it. In a state like Kentucky, he wants to do away with the Department of Agriculture, wants to do away with the Department of Education.

That`s not what Kentuckians want. I mean, Kentuckians are angry, like the rest country. They have fear. They have anxiety. They`re concerned about jobs. But I`m frustrated, too, Chris, and I think the question, the central question here is, How do we use that passion? How do we use that anger? Do we use it to heat the building or do we use it to burn the building down?

MATTHEWS: Well, you know, you just said something so incredible to me, having grown up during it. You`re saying that this fellow running for Senate -- from Kentucky, the United States Senate, wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act which says you can`t deny -- you can`t deny an African-American a chance to use your bathroom at a gas station. You can`t deny them the right to sit at your lunch table, your lunch counter. You`re saying he wants to get rid of that law and let people be discriminatory again?

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