Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Roundup: Dark-money PAC says it'll spend almost $1 million on ad attacking Grimes for backing 'amnesty'

So far, it's mainly about money and advertising . . .
  • A super PAC called the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition says it will spend $980,000 in one week, a very heavy buy, airing a television commercial that attacks Alison Lundergan Grimes for supporting the Senate-passed bill that would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, calling it "amnesty." The KOC, which is called a "dark-money" outfit because it does not disclose its contributors, has been the largest buyer of advertising in the Senate race. Sen Mitch McConnell "has yet to hammer Grimes on this issue in his paid advertising, but their stances on the topic were among their clearest differences during a Kentucky Farm Bureau forum last month," James Hohmann of Politico notes.
    The bill "did not contain anything as sweeping as [the] dictionary definition of amnesty ... The act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals," writes Glenn Kessler, "The Fact Checker" for The Washington Post. He also notes that the bill was "written by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans," not President Obama, and that another group affiliated with GOP strategist Karl Rove ran an ad last year supporting similar legislation: "It's enough to give politics a bad name."
  • Following a Grimes ad in which she repeatedly shoots a gun, and a response ad from McConnell showing Obama doing likewise, the race will have some ads that are really about guns, from the National Rifle Association. It will be "a mix of TV, radio and digital ads," like those to be run in Georgia, Iowa and Louisiana, Hohmann reports. "In Kentucky, the initial buy is $330,000."
  • The Credit Union National Association PAC is running 60-second radio commercials in which people identified as small-business owners praise McConnell for his work and say they are voting for him.
  • McConnell's campaign said Grimes is raising money with billionaire Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Corp. owns Fruit of the Loom Inc., which is closing its plant in Jamestown, costing the Southern Kentucky town 600 jobs. Grimes spokeswoman Charly Norton said the claim is inaccurate: "Warren Buffett is not attending or participating in any event with Alison." The McConnell campaign responded by supplying a PDF of an invitation to an event tonight, which says Buffett will participate via conference call. Norton replied 50 minutes later, "That is an error that has since been corrected. Buffett is not participating in the event or attending." McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore retorted, "Everything that Kentuckians fear about Alison Lundergan Grimes is illustrated perfectly in today's deception about Warren Buffett. Grimes is perfectly willing to raise money with an Obama billionaire who just killed 600 jobs in Kentucky until she gets caught by the media, at which time she lies, gets busted, then claims she made an 'error'."
  • Robert Ransdell, who is running a write-in campaign for the Senate opposing Jews and saying he is the candidate for white people, was stopped from speaking today by University of Kentucky staff who said his remarks were "highly objectionable," especially for high-school students who were attending the annual Constitution Day observance of the UK School of Journalism and Telecommunications. Alan Lytle of WUKY has a report. (Lytle photo: UK staff member interrupts Ransdell)

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