Group that favors taxpayer-funded campaigns starts running one-minute TV ad against McConnell

Rolling roundup for Tuesday, Sept. 9:

• In response to Alison Lundergan Grimes's TV ad saying he should be fired for missing the vast majority of his Senate committee meetings, Sen. Mitch McConnell today started an ad saying he has the power to appoint Senate committee members, "making sure Kentucky's voice is heard."
• A super PAC called Every Voice Action, which favors public financing of state and federal campaigns, to combat corruption, says it will spend at least $1 million on a "Big Money Mitch" campaign with a 60-second ad about McConnell's statement that "the worst day of my political life" was when President George W. Bush signed into law the McCain-Feingold law, "a bipartisan bill designed to rein in the power of large contributors."
• In a speech at Hopkinsville, Grimes criticized McConnell for “enacting the arbitrary and really mindless sequester cuts” that could cause a further reduction in military spending, affecting nearby Fort Campbell, Steve Breen reports for the Kentucky New Era. Asked what she would do about sequestration, which is designed to reduce the federal budget deficit, Grimes said, “We need to balance the budget the right way by cutting waste, fraud and abuse, spending smarter and making sure that we end the loopholes for the millionaires and billionaires and the tax breaks that Mitch McConnell has created.”
• McConnell is back in Washington, where the Senate is in session, probably for the rest of September. Grimes started a web ad accusing McConnell of dodging questions.
• In a tweet, New York Times national political correspondent Jonathan Martin asks, "If Grimes doesn't start moving #s by end of month, esp in E KY, does she start using Kynect (AKA: ACA)?" Al Cross, editor of this blog, replied, "I think so, and some in her camp have wanted to do that already," adding that pro-Obamacare ads by Democrats in Senate races in Arkansas and West Virginia could "show the way." Kynect is the state health-insurance marketplace created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.