Conway's Attack On Paul Slammed By Fellow Dems

WASHINGTON -- Democrats in Kentucky and elsewhere seem ready to bail -- perhaps wholesale -- on Democrat Jack Conway for his "mocking Christianity" attack on Dr. Rand Paul.

"I wouldn't have done it," Rep. John Yarmuth, the popular Louisville Democrat who is also a member of the House leadership, told The Huffington Post. "And it looks like it's backfiring."

Yarmuth spoke to me before a planned appearance on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, in which Matthews harshly grilled Conway about a new TV ad and debate attack. In them, Conway says that Paul "mocked Christianity" by being a member in college of a group that had been banned for its activities by school authorities.

Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri criticized the ad theme, and other Democrats have privately done so, but open criticism from the politically savvy Yarmuth -- on the ballot in Kentucky with Conway -- is a sign that the ad is rapidly coming to be regarded as a one-step-too-far move in a year in which nothing seems to be over the line.