Grimes dealings 'no-win'; McConnell shuns Sun. shows; H-L writers wonder about candidates' age contrast

Sunday news and commentary, mainly the latter . . .

• Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal says in his Sunday column that the Alison Lundergan Grimes campaign's dealings with her father's companies was "a no-win situation for Grimes because it gave U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign a reason to draw Jerry Lundergan into the fray. And that's something McConnell, R-Ky., has been itching to do ever since Grimes entered the race 13 months ago."
• In a news story, Gerth reports "The Jefferson County Republican Party said it asked a volunteer at its Kentucky State Fair booth to leave after the man told fair-goers, including a Courier-Journal reporter, that the Obama administration won't prosecute African Americans for voter fraud and suggested that President Barack Obama is a Muslim."
• Kevin Wheatley of The State Journal in Frankfort details the dueling complaints to the Senate Ethics Committee about McConnell and to the Federal Election Commission about Grimes. "The complaints will likely linger into and past the Nov. 4 election," Wheatley writes. "A review of FEC complaints show the agency taking months, if not years, to settle disputes, and the Senate ethics committee typically does not launch formal investigations within 60 days of an election."
• McConnell "has all but disappeared" from Sunday talk shows, reports Jim Carroll of The Courier-Journal. "McConnell's low-profile on Sunday appears to be part of a campaign strategy designed to distance the senator from Washington and avoid the potential for controversy, political observers said."
• Larry Dale Keeling of the Lexington Herald-Leader says both candidates "performed admirably" at the Kentucky Farm Bureau forum: "McConnell was much better than he was on the Fancy Farm stage and displayed a veteran senator's knowledge of national issues. Grimes obviously had studied those issues well enough to hold her own. But my takeaway from the forum had nothing to do with anything either one of them said." McConnell remained seated while Grimes went to a lectern, and "each of the 10 times Grimes passed behind McConnell's chair provided an image of stark contrast: a 35-year-old woman on the move past a 72-year-old man in a sedentary position. I'm 67, and sedentary is a personal friend. So, trust me, I would opt to remain seated, as McConnell did. But the contrast between energetic youth and not-so-energetic non-youth captured in those 10 moments is there for the taking if the Grimes camp can figure out a way to exploit it without crossing the ageism line." H-L political writer Sam Youngman made a similar point Friday.