July 10 roundup: Grimes releases Medicare web ad, won't say if she backs Obama immigration request

Alison Lundergan Grimes tried to keep the talk focused on Medicare, not immigration:

• Grimes released an online-only ad today adding a new wrinkle to her argument with Sen. Mitch McConnell about Medicare: His support for a higher eligibility age for Medicare as part of an overall deal on the federal budget. The ad refers to a Nov. 30, 2012, article in The Wall Street Journal in which "McConnell says a deal on the federal budget might be possible if lawmakers could reach bipartisan agreement on higher Medicare premiums for the wealthy, an increase in the Medicare eligibility age and slowing cost-of-living increases for Social Security," Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. The 48-second web ad is a response to a McConnell television ad released on Tuesday, which replied to Grimes's first attack ad. McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore told Youngman that a web video would not "extinguish the flames on her credibility."
  
• Grimes declined four times to say whether she supports President Obama's "request for $3.7 billion to address the immigration crisis on the nation's southern border," Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Grimes "said she was for securing the border and an 'earned pathway to citizenship,' but in her answers to questions about Obama's supplemental request, she repeatedly referenced McConnell's opposition to an immigration reform bill the Senate approved last year." (Read more)
• McConnell said in a Senate floor speech that Obama appeared to be asking for a blank check "that would allow him to sustain his current failed policy," not "the right tools to solve the problem." For his news release, click here.
  
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/07/10/3331269/grimes-declines-to-take-a-stance.html?sp=/99/322/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/07/10/3331269/grimes-declines-to-take-a-stance.html?sp=/99/322/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy
• "Will the 2013 and 2014 Fancy Farm Picnic's political speeches be the only time McConnell and Grimes appear on the same stage?" asks Joe Arnold of Louisville's WHAS-TV. Both campaigns have been reluctant to agree on a debate schedule. McConnell's campaign announced Wednesday that he would appear at the Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation's "Measure the Candidates" forum Aug. 20. "McConnell has stipulated three 'Lincoln-Douglas' style debates with no audience and a moderator to act only as a timekeeper, Grimes has pushed for audience participation," notes Arnold. Grimes has agreed to appear on KET's candidate forum Oct. 13 but McConnell has not.