So ousted Anne Northup has officially announced her candidacy against Rep. John Yarmuth. Also running in the GOP primary will be Louisville businessman Chris Thieneman, and it appears that some GOP careerists aren’t too happy about that:

[Thieneman] claimed in an interview that people working on her behalf have “threatened” him in an effort to get him out of the race — including Larry Cox, who runs Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office in Kentucky.

He said the threats weren’t of a physical nature. But he added that he had angered Northup and other Republicans and that the race would be ugly.

Northup denied that she or anyone working on her behalf has tried to get Thieneman out of the race. “There are several advantages of having a primary,” she said.

Thieneman, 42, is running as an “anti-establishment” candidate, but he said his comments weren’t orchestrated to help him solidify that position in the race.

He said several elected officials and other Republican officials have called him over the past few days and suggested that he leave the race or face an ugly battle against Northup.

He said that one state representative told him he has “stirred up Anne’s hornet’s nest,” and that Cox told him “you’re going to be in a fight like you’ve never been in before, and it’s going to be nasty.”

He also accused McConnell of being behind efforts by the party last year to clear the field for Roberts. He said “no one is going to convince me that Mitch McConnell didn’t have Erwin supposedly called up.”

Anne, give it up. We don’t want you. Your own party didn’t want you. Try to have a modicum of dignity, why don’t you? The message of Kentuckians to you and McConnell is loud and clear: we are SICK to DEATH of our elected officials not TALKING TO US, not LISTENING TO US and most of all, not WORKING FOR US! We are tired of politicians BOUGHT AND SOLD!

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