TEA PARTY FOUNDER: "WE'VE COME TO TAKE OUR GOVERNMENT BACK"

Conducting interviews on this topic is the Founder of the modern day Tea Party movement and the President of TeaParty.org Dale Robertson.

Insurgent Senate candidate Rand Paul claimed the Republican nomination for the seat of retiring Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning Tuesday evening, easily besting establishment favorite Trey Grayson, the sitting secretary of State who won the endorsement of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

With nearly 85 percent of precincts reporting, Paul was drawing 59 percent of the vote to Grayson's 35 percent a yawning lead over a candidate once viewed as a sure bet for his party's nomination.

In his victory speech, Paul applauded the tea party movement and issued a stern warning to the political establishment: "I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We've come to take our government back."

"The tea party movement is about saving the country from a mountain of debt that is devouring our country and that I think could lead to chaos," Paul said grimly, laying into President Barack Obama for his participation in last year's Copenhagen summit on global warming and accusing Obama of trying to "apologize for the industrial revolution."

Reactions to Paul's nomination split sharply from the left and right.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who endorsed Paul in the primary, called the election a wake up call in an interview with the Associated Press, describing the campaign as an opportunity to not embrace the status quo but to shake things up."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine painted the Kentucky race as a victory for the far-right Republican segment of the electorate calling Paul a nominee whose ideas are outside of the political mainstream.

On the Democratic side in Kentucky, state Attorney General Jack Conway had pulled into a lead over Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, holding 45 percent of the vote to Mongiardo's 42 percent and likely giving national Democrats their first-choice candidate for the fall campaign.

Voting was over in two other pivotal Senate primaries, but few returns had yet been reported in the Pennsylvania and Arkansas elections that had two Democratic incumbents fighting for their political lives.

Polls in Pennsylvania closed at 8 p.m. as party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter awaited the results of his duel with primary challenger Joe Sestak, a second-term congressman whose numbers surged in the final weeks of the campaign.

With inclement weather threatening to depress turnout in the Specter-friendly Philadelphia area, ABC News reported that the longtime legislator visibly teared up after casting his ballot, but insisted: "I expect to vote many more times. I expect to be in the Senate for a long time yet."

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, a vocal Specter supporter, told POLITICO the election could break either way: "It's 50-50, right down the middle."

On the other side of the state, voters were set to decide the special election for the vacant seat of the late Democratic Rep. John Murtha.

The final polls of the race showed Democrat Mark Critz and Republican Tim Burns locked in a virtual tie, with Public Policy Polling giving Burns a statistically insignificant one-point lead on Sunday night.

In a critical battleground in the district, Cambria County, elections director Fred Smith told POLITICO that absentee ballots were roughly matching the district's voter registration profile, with Republicans slightly overperforming.

Of 1,060 absentee votes cast, 62 percent came from Democrats and 35 percent came from Republicans that compares with the Democrats 61-percent share of registered voters and Republicans 31-percent share.

Arkansas polls were closed half an hour after Pennsylvania's, and both Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln and her primary challenger, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, spent the last day of the campaign tamping down expectations in a race that could go to a runoff if neither candidate breaks 50 percent of the vote.

"We certainly hope to win today outright, but I do think it's fair to point out that when you've been in a race 1 weeks and you're taking on an 11-year incumbent, who has been a member of Congress for four years before that, by anybody's reckoning, a runoff would be a victory for us," Halter told reporters.

Lincoln said she'd be ecstatic one way or the other, whether we win right out or whether we go to a runoff.

Even as voting got underway Tuesday morning, a pair of breaking political scandals added new fireworks to the already theatrical day.

The New York Times reported Monday night that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, running for Senate as a Democrat, had repeatedly misrepresented his activities during the Vietnam War.

Under fire for suggesting he had served overseas when he had not, Blumenthal called an emergency press conference at a VFW hall Tuesday afternoon to push back against the story.

At the hastily assembled afternoon event, where he was surrounded by veterans, Blumenthal struck a defiant note, declaring: "On a few occasions I have misspoken about my service and I regret that, and I take full responsibility. But I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to our country." Blumenthal called his disputed remarks "absolutely unintentional, a few misplaced words 'in,' instead of 'during,' totally unintentional."

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, signaled his party would stand by Blumenthal as its candidate as Connecticut Democrats assemble this weekend for a nominating convention.

"I'm sure those veterans who will be standing up for him today will make the case for him, that he will continue to stay in the Senate race and that we will continue to support him," Menendez said.

Meanwhile, a once-predictable House contest was upended by the resignation of Indiana Republican Rep. Mark Souder, who admitted to an extramarital affair with an aide in an emotional statement.

"I have sinned against God, my wife and my family. I am so shamed to have hurt those I love," Souder said. "My family were more than willing to stand here with me. We are a committed family. But the error is mine, and I should bear the responsibility."

It was not immediately clear who would replace Souder on the ballot in his Republican-heavy district.

Souder won re-nomination earlier this month with less than 50 percent of the vote, against a split field of GOP challengers. The Democratic nominee is physician Tom Hayhurst.

ABOUT YOUR GUEST: Dale Robertson is the Founder of the modern day Tea Party movement and the President of TeaParty.org.

Dale is a family man living in Texas with his wife and five children.

He is a retired military officer.

He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Washington in Political Science, as well as an Associate's Degree from Southwestern College in Engineering.

Dale Robertson is volunteering full time for the establishment of the Tea Party.

His website can be found at www.TeaParty.org.