Inside Politics: McConnell hires campaign manager with Paul history

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has hired some tea party credibility.

The Kentucky Republican has hired Jesse Benton, who steered the presidential campaign of Texas congressman Ron Paul, to head Mr. McConnell’s re-election campaign in 2014. Mr. McConnell says he’s committed to running a presidential-level campaign, and Mr. Benton’s hiring shows he’s acutely aware of the need to win support from conservatives. The hire, along with Mr. McConnell’s $6 million campaign war chest, could also scare off potential tea party challengers.

In 2010, Mr. McConnell backed Trey Grayson for the state’s then-empty Senate seat, but Mr. Paul’s son, Rand, won instead — with tea party support. Now a hero of the small-government movement, Rand Paul says he supports Mr. McConnell’s hiring of Mr. Benton.

CAMPAIGN

Jay-Z, Beyonce host pricey fundraiser for Obama

President Obama’s re-election campaign is getting a boost from pop stars Beyonce and Jay-Z.

The superstar couple will hold a fundraiser with Mr. Obama on Tuesday at a swanky New York nightclub that Jay-Z owns.

Tickets are $40,000, but the campaign says a small donation lands a chance to win two tickets — airfare and hotel included.

Beyonce says in an email to Mr. Obama’s supporters that she’s a huge fan and will do whatever it takes to help him win a close race.

This isn’t the first time the Obamas have teamed up with the A-list couple to promote each other’s‘ causes. Michelle Obama helped Beyonce with efforts to promote global humanitarianism, and the president appeared in a pre-recorded video earlier this month at a Jay-Z event in Philadelphia.

WISCONSIN

Biden plays to younger crowd in Midwest stop

EAU CLAIRE — Playing to a younger audience, Vice President Joseph R. Biden is stressing differences between the presidential campaigns on education, college debt and entitlement programs more in doubt for future generations.

Mr. Biden spoke Thursday to a crowd estimated by local fire officials at 3,000 people on the University of Wisconsin campus in Eau Claire. He stressed the current administration’s moves to defray college costs and said Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign hardly mentions education “except in a negative context.”

It was Mr. Biden’s second Wisconsin stop this month, a sign of the state’s new importance as an established presidential battleground.

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