Alabama’s Richard Shelby, still energetic at age 81, is not on many conservatives’ lists of “worst Republican senators,” much less a list of obviously vulnerable ones. But challenger Jonathan McConnell offers at least the potential to be a real, and rare, conservative superstar.

McConnell’s company, Meridian Global Consulting, is among a class of “private maritime security companies” that receive the lion’s share of credit, in numerous publications (including The Economist), for virtually ending East African piracy altogether.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

But does that experience, and his experience as a Marine captain outside Fallujah, make him the right guy to be a U.S. Senator?

Trying very hard to be even-handed, I profiled this race — the primary is March 1 — for this week’s print edition of The Weekly Standard, here.

Somalian_Piracy_Threat_Map_2010

 

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