It looks like Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway was determined to break $2 million in year-to-date mark in time for the quarterly campaign finance deadline no matter what it took.

According to his third-quarter fundraising report, on the last day of the quarter, Conway loaned his campaign $125,000, which put him over the $2 million mark in his Senate bid.

Last week, Conway's camp sent out a statement to supporters titled "Conway Breaks $2 Million Mark!" but the release didn't note that the attorney general dipped into his own pocket to achieve that goal.

Kentucky’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo announced Tuesday that he raised nearly $514,000 during the third quarter and ended September with $751,000 cash on hand.

Mongiardo is battling state Attorney General Jack Conway in one of the most closely watched Democratic Senate primaries of the cycle.

“Our campaign of Kentuckians for Kentuckians and by Kentuckians is a testament to the support our campaign has generated,” Mongiardo said in a statement. “We have received contributions from all 120 Kentucky counties.”

Mongiardo raised just $303,000 in the second quarter, a paltry amount compared to Conway’s $1.3 million haul. Conway reported about $1.2 million on hand as of June 30. Conway’s camp has yet to announce its third-quarter fundraising totals but campaign manager Mark Riddle said in a statement Tuesday that the attorney general’s total bested Mongiardo’s haul from July to September.

“We continue to be humbled by the outpouring of support across Kentucky, and we will release fundraising numbers in the coming days showing we have once again outraised the Mongiardo campaign,” Riddle said. “It is clear that Jack Conway has the momentum in this campaign.”

Republican lawyer Andy Barr is initiating a likely 2010 campaign in Kentucky against Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler.

The Kentucky political blog Page One said Wednesday that Barr has organized an "exploratory" committee to run in the state's 6th District, an area of central Kentucky that Chandler has represented for nearly six years. Barr also has a campaign Web site.

Barr said that he was "taking the initial steps necessary to travel the District, talk with potential supporters, and raise the resources necessary to launch a successful campaign."

The money bomb is back. Borrowing a page from his father’s playbook, Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul of Kentucky raked in more than $430,000 during a Thursday Internet-based fundraising drive.

Paul, a Bowling Green eye surgeon, is the son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who gained attention in 2008 by running for the Republican presidential nomination on a libertarian platform.

The online fundraising event, which coincided with the elder Paul’s 74th birthday, attempted to mimic his father’s successful “money bomb” efforts in 2008 that attracted small donations from conservatives nationwide, including $6 million in a single day.

Paul announced his Senate bid earlier this month, soon after Republican Sen. Jim Bunning, a Hall of Fame major league baseball pitcher, announced his decision to not seek a third term in 2010.

Rand Paul, a son of Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, is making official his 2010 campaign for a Senate seat in Kentucky.

Paul, an eye surgeon from Bowling Green, had referred to his Senate campaign as an "exploratory" effort. "Dr. Paul will now transition his exploratory committee to a full election committee," his campaign said in a release Wednesday.

Paul initiated his campaign in mid-May, when Republican Sen. Jim Bunning was still saying he planned to seek re-election. Paul is declaring his candidacy for Bunning's seat less than two weeks after Bunning said July 27 that he would not run.

One of the more interesting state political rituals is Kentucky's Fancy Farm Picnic, held on the first Saturday in August in the far western part of the state.

Plenty of pork, mutton and political speeches are served up and there's cheering and jeering of candidates for office who have come to view the picnic as a must-stop.

The two Democrats and two Republicans who are the major 2010 candidates for the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Jim Bunning all spoke at last weekend's gathering. You can find videos here of Democrats Daniel Mongiardo, the lieutenant governor, and Jack Conway, the state attorney general. You can find videos here of Republicans Trey Grayson, Kentucky's secretary of State, and Rand Paul, an eye surgeon whose father is Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul.

In criticizing unnamed Republican leaders for doing "everything in their power to dry up my fundraising," Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning didn't give a run-of-the-mill retirement announcement.

Political reporters are accustomed to members of Congress announcing their departure by saying that they've accomplished all of their goals in office or that they "want to spend more time with my family," even in cases when it's clear there are political factors influencing the decision.

But Bunning's goodbye on Monday was high and tight, just like the fastballs he used to throw as a Hall of Fame pitcher.

Kentucky Republican Jim Bunning's retirement announcement on Monday was the eighth by a senator whose seat is on a 2010 ballot. Barring a major surprise, that's probably the last Senate retirement that will be announced this election cycle.

The eight "open" Senate seats is above the average for the past few election cycles, more than the five in 2008 or the four in 2006 and matching the eight in 1994 and 2004. In the past three decades, only in the 1996 cycle were there more open Senate seats (13) than in 1994, 2004 or 2010.

Though the retirement announcement by Bunning, who was hampered by poor fundraising and approval ratings, probably increases the Republican Party's chances of holding his seat, open seats often are more difficult for the defending party to retain than those that incumbents are defending.

Back from another trip to the Senate's public records office, which is busy processing the dozens of campaign finance reports that senators and candidates had to mail by a July 15 deadline.

Most of the reports, which cover receipts and expenditures for the second quarter of 2009 and often run into the hundreds of pages, aren't yet available for viewing. (Unfortunately, the Senate doesn't mandate electronic filing of campaign finance reports). But here are some useful nuggets of information from campaign reports I did view earlier today.

Alabama: Talk about low overhead. Republican Sen. Richard C. Shelby, a shoo-in to win a fifth term in 2010, raised $1.4 million and spent just $96,000 doing so. That's less than 7 percent of his second-quarter receipts. Even at this early stage, most campaigns spend a larger percentage of their receipts on fundraising and staff expenses. (For example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid raised $3.3 million and spent $976,000, or about 30 percent.) Shelby has a whopping $14.8 million cash-on-hand as July began.

Trey Grayson, Kentucky's Republican secretary of State, raised $603,000 in this year's second quarter for a potential 2010 Senate campaign, even though Republican incumbent Jim Bunning says he still plans to seek re-election.

According to my analysis of Grayson's report (one of the few to be on file today in the Senate Office of Public Records ahead of tonight's deadline), elected officials were among the donors to his "exploratory" campaign. They included state Reps. Scott Brinkman, Brent Housman and Alecia Webb-Edgington.

Other elected officials who gave to Grayson's effort included K.C. Crosbie, a councilwoman in Lexington, and Hal Heiner, a councilman in Louisville.