Many Tea Party animals were anxious to watch Sen. Rand Paul go to Washington in 2011 and slay the head of the “RINO” beast, Sen. Mitch McConnell. They were sadly disappointed, as for whatever reason (Weakness? Social climbing? Extortion?), whenever Mitch asks him to jump, Rand asks how high.

But what about Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who in tonight’s GOP senatorial primary will finally slay gazillion-year Sen. Dick Lugar? Apparently, Mourdock has no qualms about telling Mitch McConnell to stick his leg into “the woodchipper.“:

Asked at campaign event in April what he’d do if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to force him in line with a less rigidly conservative agenda, Mourdock recounted a meeting with Sen. Jim DeMint, who became a power center in the Senate after backing 2010′s crop of conservative candidates, and who has been critical of McConnell.

“[DeMint] reached down, he’s a tall guy, and put a hand on either shoulder, and said, ‘Richard, you get me four or five more true conservatives, and we’ve just changed the leadership of the United States Senate,’” Mourdock said, recounting how he asked DeMint if it’s worth replacing one Republican with another.

With so many Tea Party candidates winning their senatorial primary this year, Mitch McConnell may face this tortuous dillemma in the fall elections: If the Democrats win, he’s still the leader of the minority party; but if the Tea Party wins, he’s a nobody back-bencher in the majority.

Knowing Mitch “Me First” McConnell, we’re not entirely certain that the latter option would be more preferable to him.

(h/t WFPL)