McConnell: 5 to 10 Democratic senators appear ready to vote with GOP on some issues; EPA still top target

By Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said Saturday that half the senators who have called him since his re-election have been Democrats, giving him hope that he can create bipartisan coalitions as the chamber's new majority leader, especially to block Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

McConnell at meeting

"They're anxious to be under new management, where their work has a chance to be heard, and we're going to do that," McConnell told a meeting of the state Republican Party Executive Committee, adding later, "It's apparent that a number of the Democrats have had it up to here with Barack Obama themselves." He told reporters later, "I think they're getting a little bit tired of doing the president's bidding."

"That's the good news," McConnell told his partisans. "The bad news is, I haven't heard anything from the president since the election that indicates he has an interest in changing anything." He added later, "I keep waiting for Obama to get the message and move to the center."

He said to applause that just as Obama has declared "war on coal," he will "declare war on EPA."

McConnell made clear during his campaign that he would use budget bills to keep the agency from pursuing proposed limits on carbon-dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, but he said there are issues other than coal: "There is a widespread anger over the country" about EPA's overreach, he said. He told reporters later, "Coal is the most conspicuous example if it, but it's happening in a lot of other areas."

The other example he cited is EPA's proposal to redefine "waters of the United States," a seminal phrase in the Clean Water Act, in ways that have confused and angered many agricultural interests.

Republicans will hold at least 53 of the 100 seats in the new Senate, and McConnell said "I'm pretty optimistic" that a 54th seat will go their way after a Dec. 6 runoff in Louisiana. Asked if he thinks he can assemble the 60 votes that he said would continue to be needed to pass significant legislation, he said "I think there's a pool of five to 10 Democrats" who could create a center-right coalition.

McConnell said that number may become clearer after the Senate votes next week on the bill that would order completion of the Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline from Canada to U.S. refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. "We don't know," he said, because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has prevented votes on such legislation, including coal issues. Here's a video clip from cn|2's "Pure Politics":

Whatever bills the Republican-controlled Senate and House may pass, Obama could veto, and McConnell has said that Republicans will not shut down the government by holding appropriations bills hostage.

Asked if GOP leaders might authorize continued operation of essential government services but exclude EPA from that, he said the question was too hypothetical to answer. Asked if a bill that combined a number of issues could get the 67 Senate votes needed to override a veto, he said "I have no idea."

He told the party committee that he expects to have the "bourbon summit" with Obama that has been discussed since the president said he would like to meet with the senator over Kentucky's most famous beverage, but "Whether it's anything beyond a p.r. gimmick remains to be seen."

He concluded his remarks to the committee by saying, "It's harder to be the offensive coordinator than the defensive coordinator . . . It's a responsibility I welcome, and I'm going to carry it out as best I can."

McConnell then told reporters, "I'm going to be more inclined to judge him by what he does than by what he says. I don't want to minimize this opportunity for the country." He said many items that need attention, such as a long-range transportation plan and regulation of government-sponsored financial enterprises, "are not all that partisan." Here's a cn|2 video:

McConnell reiterated that he will support Sen. Rand Paul if he runs for president, but said Paul would certainly seek re-election in 2016. State law bars someone from being on the same ballot for both offices, and Paul's camp has suggested a way around that would be to replace the Republican presidential primary with a caucus.

McConnell said he had given no thought to that idea.

That issue would be decided by the party committee that McConnell addressed first.

The senator said that since he was speaking to a room full of "political junkies," he wanted to mention a few exit-poll results; the one he highlighted was that he won the votes of women by 3 percentage points even though he had a female challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes: "I think we successfully made the argument to women that while gender's not unimportant, it's not the only reason to cast a vote in an election."

The crowd appreciated McConnell's digs at Bill and Hillary Clinton, who campaigned repeatedly for Grimes and may think that Kentucky is on the list of states she can carry in the 2016 presidential race. "I don't think she'll ever be competitive in Kentucky," he said. "This is not 1992 or 1996," when her husband won the state with pluralities, the last one with 0.9 percent of the vote.

McConnell says he's for Paul, but is mum on plan for 2020; reiterates vow to go after anti-coal regulations

Photo by J. Scott Applewhite, AP

"There were only two things Mitch McConnell didn't want to talk about Thursday — whether he will run for re-election in 2020 and his eventual legacy," Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader after scoring the first one-to-one interview after the senator's re-election.

The big news from the story is that McConnell said he would support Sen. Rand Paul for president if he decides to run: "We've developed a very tight relationship, and I'm for him. . . . Whatever he decides to do. I don't think he's made a final decision on that. But he'll be able to count on me."

But when it comes to the 2015 Republican primary for governor, McConnell told Youngman he won't take sides, citing his failed endorsement of Trey Grayson against Paul in 2010. "I've learned my lesson there," he said. "That clearly was a mistake. We all make them, and that's one if I had to do over again I would."

McConnell reiterated that his top priority for Kentucky is "to try to do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in" from its proposed limits on carbon-dioxide emissions, which would effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants, a major goal of President Obama. "It will be hard because the only good tool to do that ... is through the spending process, and if he feels strongly enough about it, he can veto the bill," McConnell said.

"As he rattled off the coal-producing counties he won Tuesday for the first time in his career, McConnell said he feels a 'deep responsibility' to stop the Environmental Protection Agency" from regulating CO2 to combat climate change, Youngman reports.

"I'm absolutely convinced from the people I talk to around the country, not just here but around the country, that coal has a future," he said. "The question is whether or not coal is going to have a future here. It's got a future in Europe. It's got a future in China, India, Australia. But not here? . . . It makes me very angry, and I'm going to do everything I can to try to stop them."

For another Youngman story on McConnell's view of dealing with Obama, click here.

New ads: McConnell uses activist's undercover videos; Grimes features laid-off Mayfield tire-plant worker

Rounding up developments and comments the day before the debate . . .

• Both major candidates have new television commercials, making some of their toughest attacks yet in attempts to be the lesser of two evils.
• Sen. Mitch McConnell is using conservative activist James O'Keefe's undercover video of some Grimes supporters to argue that she is lying about her support for coal. The ad uses a headline saying the comments in one video came from "Grimes' staff," but University of Kentucky student Anthony Pendleton found no proof of that; The Courier-Journal's Joe Gerth dubbed the comments "speculation."
• Wayne Chambers, who worked at the defunct General Tire plant in Mayfield, says in a Grimes ad that McConnell did nothing to help workers there and "voted three times for tax loopholes that make it easy to ship overseas. Why should we lose our jobs and let Mitch McConnell keep his?" Those tax breaks are for any moving expenses, domestic or foreign, and fact-checkers have said such charges are misleading.
• Lexington Herald-Leader political writer Sam Youngman writes that the candidates "have done a fair job of lowering expectations for how they might perform against each other" in Monday night's KET debate. "McConnell and Grimes traded dueling disasters in the days leading up to Monday's showdown, with McConnell being blasted by Democrats for a "needlessly angry" performance on Kentucky Sports Radio and Grimes going viral as political analysts of all stripes lined up to mock her refusal to say whether she voted for President Barack Obama."
• 
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/11/3475921/a-week-of-stumbles-lowers-expectations.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy
• A federal judge has denied Libertarian Party candidate David Patterson's demand that he be allowed into the debate, and the party says it doesn't have the money to appeal, Adam Beam reports for The Associated Press.
• Sahil Kapur of Talking Points Memo has a short profile of Patterson.
• C-J columnist and UK professor Al Cross looks toward the debate and offers "a rundown of the flim-flam lines to watch for, the facts that counter them, and the questions the senator and his challenger should be answering."
• Gerth rounds up the candidates' positions on five major issues: the economy, coal and the environment, foreign policy, immigration and pay equity.
• Youngman says on WKYT-TV, "Our poll shows Alison Lundergan Grimes surging with conservatives, which is sort of a stretch to wrap your head around." Youngman was interviewed for the station's "Newsmakers" show, which airs again at 10 a.m. on CWKYT.
• Grimes and McConnell attended the Logan County Tobacco and Heritage Festival in Russellville, WBKO-TV of Bowling Green reports; Grimes drew a large crowd to a labor rally in Paducah and noted McConnell's opposition to raising the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits and allowing refinancing of student loans. At both sites, she was asked about her refusal to say whether she voted for President Obama. She told The Paducah Sun, "I'm the (state's) chief election official, and protecting the sanctity of the ballot box is what I was elected to do by the people of Kentucky. I don't believe it's relevant to this election. Instead of asking who I voted for, we should be talking about what I will be voting for in Washington."
  
• "Alison Lundergan Grimes Is Running the Worst Senate Campaign of the Year," reads The New Republic's headline over Jason Zengerle's story, which starts with the Obama-vote flap. "Grimes’s refusal to say who she voted for is emblematic of her entire campaign, which, for the last 15 months, has been waged in a defensive crouch—evading and obfuscating at every turn," Zengerle writes. "While Grimes may have denied McConnell the ammo to convince Kentuckians to vote against her, she hasn’t given the citizens of the commonwealth many good reasons to vote for her."

McConnell targets CO2 rules, rejects U.S. taking the lead on climate change, and says scientists disagree

By Anthony Pendleton and Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Sen. Mitch McConnell gave more specifics Friday of how Congress would attempt to limit Obama administration regulations if he and other Republicans gain control of the Senate. And he rejected the idea that the United States should take the lead on limiting carbon-dioxide emissions to fight climate change.

The Senate Republican leader told the crowd at a luncheon hosted by Commerce Lexington that he'll have Congress pass a budget if he becomes majority leader and the GOP gains control of the Senate. He added that they would tack onto appropriations bills that would include “directions” and “restrictions.” Referring to the restrictions, McConnell said, “Right at the top of my list is coal regulations.”

After his speech, McConnell said he meant the regulations that would limit carbon-dioxide emissions in an effort to fight climate change.

One of these proposed regulations is the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce CO2 emissions 30 percent by 2030. Coal supporters oppose such regulations because it would, in effect, prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power plants using current technology.

McConnell has declined to give his opinions about climate change, though 97 percent of climate scientists published in peer-reviewed journals say the earth is warming and human activity is primarily responsible.

The campaign of Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes, who has said she believes in climate change and favors "a balanced approach" to it that would protect coal jobs, has criticized McConnell for not giving a definitive answer. Asked about that, McConnell said, "I have given a very definitive answer. I've said that whether or not this set of scientists or that set of scientists are correct is irrelevant."

McConnell said in his speech that the United States is the only country in the world trying to limit carbon emissions. “Everybody else has figured this out, except us,” he said.

McConnell tried to finish answering questions by saying, “The United States alone pursuing this crusade will have no impact on this mission, even if you thought this was an important mission.”

As he left, McConnell was asked if the nation with the world’s largest economy, the United States, shouldn’t take the first step in limiting carbon, he didn’t answer immediately, then said, “I’m not for taking it.”

Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Bissett said later that if the U.S. completely eliminated its use of coal, it would only reduce the world's greenhouse-gas emissions by about 3 percent.

McConnell said in his speech that the regulations would reduce the advantage of low-cost industrial power in Kentucky, which gets more than 90 percent of its electricity from coal. “The war on coal is not just a war on coal-producing counties, it’s a war on all of Kentucky,” he said.

McConnell was introduced at the luncheon by Kentucky’s leading coal operator, Joe Craft of Alliance Resource Partners. He said McConnell had led the fight for the coal industry in Congress, and noted that President Obama said last week that while he may not be on the ballot, all of his policies are.

Craft said the state and nation have suffered from the policies of Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and “It’s time to stop them in their tracks. . . . For Kentucky to prosper, Mitch McConnell needs to be the next majority leader.”

Chuck Todd says Grimes 'disqualified herself' by refusing to say whether she voted for Obama

A rolling roundup into the weekend:

• Alison Lundergan Grimes "disqualified herself" by refusing repeatedly to say whether she voted for President Obama, "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd of NBC News said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." He said, "Is she ever going to answer a tough question on anything? You want to be a U.S. senator? If you can't say -- if you can't find a way to stand behind your party's president, you can disagree with him, but can't answer that basic question, and come across looking ridiculous. I think she disqualified herself." Other observers made similar comments; The Washington Post says the episode is "getting noticed, big time." For background and video from Real Clear Politics, click here.
• Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann write on NBC's "First Read": "Grimes could have easily said, 'Of course I voted for President Obama because on economic issues, he appeared to have the best plan focused on the middle class in 2012. But like a lot of Americans, I’ve been disappointed …' Or something like that. By the way, if Grimes is going to win, she needs a fired-up Democratic base as well as an ability to win swing voters. Her answer could serve to turn off base Democratic voters while at the same time coming across as disingenuous to folks in the middle who may be totally unhappy with McConnell."
• Adam Beam of The Associated Press delves into the background of Sen. Mitch McConnell's TV ad about his help for a woman whose child was kidnapped to Mali. "As much as campaign ads are meant to convey candidates and issues in the simplest, starkest terms, there's always more to the story," Beam reports.
• The coal industry " that Grimes and McConnell have spent so much time and money fighting over is a bit of an illusion, several experts said. Coal has been dying for decades within Kentucky," reports Katherine Bagley of Inside Climate News. "Coal played an integral part in Kentucky's economy for nearly 150 years. And it became deeply rooted in the state's culture in the process, woven into regional music, literature, folklore, and traditions. However, production started falling in the late 1980s," as reserves became more expensive to mine, and more recently cheap natural gas and environmental regulations have had an impact.
• The Grimes ad that accused McConnell and his wife of taking money from anti-coal groups is FactCheck.org's the "whopper of the week," says Politico's "Morning Score," though that terminology doesn't appear in FactCheck's report.

As observers suggest different strategy for Grimes, new ad shows her saying she disagrees with Obama

New ads make news . . .

• Alison Lundergan Grimes has started a television commercial in which she personally makes explicit her differences with President Obama while she takes series of gunshots at clay pigeons and some verbal ones at Sen. Mitch McConnell. Grimes says "I'm not Barack Obama. I disagree with him on guns, coal and the EPA," the Environmental Protection Agency. She says McConnell "has done next to nothing" to save coal jobs. The 30-second spot ends with a still photograph of McConnell holding up a rifle at a Conservative Political Action Committee event this spring and Grimes saying "Mitch, that's not how you hold a gun." Earlier, she says "Mitch McConnell wants you to think I'm Barack Obama. Mitch is the same guy who thought Duke basketball players were UK." That's a reference to an early McConnell ad that used an incorrect photograph.
  UPDATE, Sept. 15: Grimes's campaign says the ad started Monday, but at least some stations started it Sunday. McConnell's campaign issued a press release noting that Grimes has raised money from and with supporters of new gun control measures.
• Bluegrass Rural, a super PAC with an Oakland, Ky., address, has bought some 60-second radio ads attacking McConnell for his votes for trade agreements and oil companies and against a 2005 bill to buy more armored equipment for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democratic activist Matt Barron of rural Massachusetts, who is involved in the effort, said the group was spending "four figures," or less than $10,000. His press releases say the trade and oil ads begin Monday on stations in Owensboro, Madisonville, Hartford, Glasgow, Bardstown, Liberty, Russell Springs, Mannsville and Mount Sterling. The military ad will run on stations in Lebanon Junction and Vine Grove, near Fort Knox; and Hopkinsville and Cadiz, near Fort Campbell. UPDATE, Sept. 20: Berry Craig writes about the PAC on Hillbilly Report.
• Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News Service writes of Grimes: "A plurality of respondents said they don’t know enough about her to form an opinion – providing McConnell with the opportunity to define her as 'Obama’s candidate.' . . . Maybe over the next two months Grimes needs to persuade undecided voters she’s more than just not McConnell."
• "Grimes might need campaign reset, observers say" is the headline over Joe Gerth's story in The Courier-Journal, which notes that the Bluegrass Poll "has seen her position erode by about 1 percentage point a month." The story quotes Democratic consultant Danny Briscoe as saying that Grimes needs to push a populist message and consider endorsing "the more popular parts of the Affordable Care Act." Al Cross explores the advantages and disadvantages of the latter idea in a column published online Saturday and in print Sunday.
• Gerth reports that the American Civil Liberties Union is objecting to KET's tightening of requirements for inclusion in its Oct. 13 Senate debate, which had the effect of exclusing Libertarian David Patterson. A KET spokesman said that was not the reason.
• Grimes doesn't support "fast track" trade authority for presidents, which McConnell favors, Kevin Wheatley reports for cn|2's "Pure Politics." Grimes told him that she appreciates business interests' “feeling and need to have fast-track approval because Congress isn’t working,” trade agreements “should be fair, especially for our American workers.” Wheatley notes Grimes is supported by labor unions, which oppose fast-track. "Grimes said in a statement emailed to Pure Politics after Saturday’s event that she would evaluate the final proposal 'to see if it is good for Kentucky workers and businesses based on these principles: Will it give Made in the USA goods and services a fair shot of getting into foreign markets or will barriers remain? Will new trading standards be strong enough on labor and legal requirements, or will they be like Chinese standards: filthy factories, sweatshop labor, and stolen patent rights? Will the U.S. and other like-minded countries be setting the rules on trade and commerce, or will it be taking the rules created by countries — like China — with command and control economies?'"

New York Times analyst sees in polls and coal a clear advantage for McConnell

Sen. Mitch McConnell has established "a clear advantage" in his re-election bid, Nate Cohn of The New York Times column The Upshot writes today: "If there is any plausibly competitive state where we have now have a clear sense of a Senate race, it is Kentucky. A recent set of diverse and high-quality nonpartisan polls and the underlying fundamentals are all in alignment: Mr. McConnell has a clear advantage."

The column's forecasting model gives McConnell a 93 percent chance of winning. "That’s partly because candidates usually win with such a clear lead at this stage, but it’s also because the underlying fundamentals point to a McConnell victory," Cohn writes. "A McConnell defeat would have been all but unprecedented: No incumbent senator who represents the party opposed to the White House has ever lost re-election in a state that leans as strongly against the incumbent president’s party as Kentucky does."

The other big reason McConnell has an advantage, Cohn says, is coal. "The inexorable decline of Democratic standing in coal country has been driven by the collapse of the national Democratic Party in this region, where environmental regulations on coal-fired power plants are deeply unpopular, as are Democratic positions on cultural issues," Cohn writes. "The traditional and narrow Democratic route to victory in Kentucky might not exist anymore, at least for a candidate seeking federal office. Ms. Grimes would need to fare better in the rest of Kentucky than any federal candidate since 1976. Unlike in other states, like Virginia or Pennsylvania, there aren’t many places in Kentucky where Democrats are making gains to counter their losses. In fact, Democrats have generally suffered losses across other parts of the state, including another stretch of coal country in Western Kentucky and the Jackson Purchase."

Roundup: Grimes claims McConnell plans to shut down the government; contest has Georgia connections

Roundup for Aug. 25:

• Alison Lundergan Grimes launched a 30-second web ad casting Sen. Mitch McConnell's plan to attach policy riders to funding bills as a bid to "shut down the government again." The ad is based on McConnell's interview with Politico, published last week, in which he said that if he becomes Senate majority leader he would attach the riders on environmental and other issues to force President Obama to accept policy changes or veto the bills and/or negotiate. The ad accurately uses Politico's description, "McConnell has a game plan to . . . risk a government shutdown," but also uses this line from MSNBC: "McConnell isn't even being subtle . . . Republicans will simply shut down the government." That leaves out an important qualifier in the story: "If the White House refuses to go along." A Grimes fundraising solicitation, emailed today, mentions the shutdown last October and says "McConnell said that if he wins, he'd do it again," incorrectly implying that he caused the shutdown. McConnell said after the Politico interview was published, "I'm the guy who gets us out of government shutdowns. I don't believe in government shutdowns." UPDATE, Aug. 26: The Grimes campaign went farther in an email today, saying McConnell "promises to shut down the government again."
• E.J. Dionne, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and columnist for The Washington Post, writes for The National Memo that "Grimes and the Democrats need to confront McConnell forcefully on the issue he has tried to fudge: A flat repeal of Obamacare would mean taking insurance away from the more than 521,000 Kentuckians who, as of last Friday, had secured coverage through Kynect. How would that sit with the state’s voters?" Dionne cites polls showing voters have a marginally favorable opinion of Kynect, the state's health-insurance exchange, and an ad by Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor in the Arkansas Senate race, "touting his vote for the health-care law as a positive for the people of his increasingly Republican state. Pryor’s ad is so soft and personal that it’s almost apolitical." That's because it involves his own cancer, and his father, former Sen. David Pryor, says “Mark’s insurance company didn’t want to pay for the treatment that ultimately saved his life.”
• Grimes and McConnell will appear together tomorrow afternoon at the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce's Red, White & Blue Picnic on the north lawn of the Daviess County Courthouse, on Second Street. "The event begins at 5 p.m., and McConnell and Grimes will be the first two speakers, beginning at 5:15 p.m," Steve Vied reports for the Messenger-Inquirer. "More than 20 other candidates for national, state and local offices are scheduled to speak."
• Kentucky is one of two states where a female Democrat is trying to capture a Republican-held seat. In Georgia, Democrat Michele Nunn, daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn, posted a 7-point lead over recent Republican nominee David Perdue in an Aug. 20-21 poll by Landmark Communications for WSB-TV, mainly on the strength of an 18-point lead among women. However, Nunn trailed by 7 in an Aug. 12-13 poll for InsiderAdvantage and WAGA-TV and by 9 in a SurveyUSA poll taken Aug. 14-17. Grimes and McConnell were virtually tied among women in recent polling. For a report by David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapers, click here.
• Perdue and McConnell met recently and buried the hatchet, reports Phil Kent of InsiderAdvantageGeorgia: "In answering a question during a primary debate, the “outsider” Perdue vowed that he wouldn’t vote for McConnell as the Senate GOP leader in a party caucus vote. But that was then and this is now. This writer questioned Perdue spokesperson Derrick Dickey as to whether his boss, if elected, would “re-consider” voting for McConnell as caucus leader whether the Republicans take control of the Senate or not. Dickey, who once handled communications for former Gov. Sonny Perdue, was precise: Perdue “would support the GOP leadership when he comes to D.C.” Dickey also pointed out that, at this point, no other senator is running against McConnell. And Dickey concluded by proclaiming that Perdue “felt good” about the McConnell meeting. This “era of good feeling” is a welcomed sign – especially when one considers that a Perdue Facebook posting says that, if elected, he will request a seat on the Senate Agriculture Committee," an appointment McConnell would make. Kent asks, "Will the Kentucky media and/or McConnell’s Democrat opponent bring up that GOP candidates like Perdue said they “oppose” the veteran Republican as their leader? And how would McConnell respond?"

Grimes, McConnell show some big differences in the closest thing yet to a debate in the race

By Megan Ingros and Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Sen. Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan Grimes came the closest they have yet to a debate at the Kentucky Farm Bureau forum Tuesday, and their clearest differences on big issue were on health care and immigration.

Grimes was the most detailed she has been in a public discussion about health-care reform. Grimes indicated that she supports Kynect, the state health-insurance exchange, created by Gov. Steve Beshear and funded by Obamacare, where people sign up for Medicaid or buy insurance.

“For the first time ever, because of our governor, 500,000 Kentuckians are able to go to the doctor, their kids get checkups before school, and many of them are farm families in rural Kentucky,” she said. “The law isn’t perfect but we have to work to fix it. . . . We have to work to streamline the Affordable Care Act, to make sure there aren’t over-burdensome regulations on our businesses, especially our small businesses.”

Grimes endorsed President Obama’s delay in the law’s employer mandate and suggested that he should also live up to his promise that “If you like your doctor, you can keep it.”

She actually appeared to be referring to keeping old insurance policies, because her next words were, “We should be working to extend that grandfathering clause so we live up to that promise that Washington politicans made to Kentuckians. . . . It requires a senator, though, who doesn’t want to repeal root and branch the access to health care that Kentuckians just got for the first time.”

McConnell answered, “She won’t use the words, but she supports Obamacare, he single worst piece of legislation that’s been passed in the last half-century.”  He said Obamacare is going to cost jobs and it “ought to be pulled out root and branch and we ought to start over.”

McConnell said what should have been done is “truly national competition among health-insurance companies to keep prices down and quality up,” as well as “a national medical malpractice standard to bring some sanity to the litigation lottery that’s confronting every health-care provider in America; and thirdly, we need to allow small businesses to form groups for the purpose of more purchasing power on the open market.”

Citing a study by the Congressional Budget Office, McConnell said the law will only cover 10 million of the 40 million people who were uninsured, and will “cost 2.5 million jobs.” The study says the predicted reduction, through 2024, will come “almost entirely because workers will choose to provide less labor,” not because jobs will be eliminated.

McConnell said Kentucky will not be able to afford its expansion of the Medicaid program, which covers about three-fourths of the newly insured. “She applauds it,” he said. “It’s fine for the governor because the first three years the federal government will pick up 100 percent of the tab, but after that, the state’s going to be in serious financial problems.”

On immigration, Grimes argued that if McConnell hadn’t “stood in the way” of a comprehensive reform bill that passed the Senate but died in the Republican-controlled House, ”We might not see the crisis we see at the border today,” with unaccompanied minors streaming across.

Grimes endorsed the bill’s “pathway to citizenship,” but McConnell said only legal residency is needed to attract needed workers and “We shouldn’t do comprehensive; I think we need to bust it up,” into separate bills. “Obamacare was pretty comprehensive.” “We need to make changes, more merit based, to people who can immediately help our country, he said.

Grimes started out by saying McConnell had broken a promise to pass a farm bill last year, and said farmers were disadvantaged by the lack of a law for several months. McConnell said, “No one was disadvantaged by any of that.”

Grimes, who stood at a lectern to answer each question, repeatedly jabbed at McConnell for being a no-show at Senate Agriculture Committee meetings. McConnell, who remained seated while speaking, cited his awards from Farm Bureau for legislative accomplishments and said afterward, “She doesn’t really understand the legislative process,” in which party leaders “have more consequential things to do” than attend committee meetings.

In her opening statement, Grimes said if McConnell, “Never has a senator been paid so much to do so little for the people of Kentucky and it’s come at the expense of our farm families.” She ended her statement by saying, “It requires, members of the Farm Bureau, putting out to pasture a senator of the past.”

The candidates alternated answering first to a series of questions posed by Farm Bureau directors.

Asked about international trade and marketing, Grimes said, “I believe in free and open trade but it must be fair trade.” McConnell cited the lack of action on trade agreements under Obama and said, “The biggest winners of trade agreements are American agriculture and her supporters are totally opposed on everything you believe in on trade.”

When asked about fiscal policy and how they plan to balance the budget, McConnell said “The best answer to the deficit is to get the economy growing,.” and said that could be done by reducing the regulatory efforts of the Obama administration, which he said constitute the main reason that the economic recovery has been slow.

Referring to our national debt, Grimes said “There are 17 trillion reasons why Kentucky needs a new senator.” She said the country fought “two wars on credit cards” in Afghanistan and Iraq, referring to the deficits and debt built up after the tax cuts of the George W. Bush administration.

On tax policy, McConnell said he was responsible for getting a $5 million exemption in the estate tax, and then for making it permanent. Grimes said she is in favor of an additional $5 million exemption for agricultural estates. McConnell said he would “like to get rid of the death tax entirely.”

Both candidates said they are against expanded water regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency, but McConnell said Grimes would enable those efforts because she would vote for Harry Reid as majority leader if she is elected.

Referring to Republican prospects of taking over the Senate, McConnell said he has a good chance of becoming majority leader. He made the case that he gives Kentucky “a distinct advantage” by being one of the only two Senate party leaders Kentucky has ever had, and can increase that as majority leader.

Grimes, slapping McConnell and Obama in the same passage, said "Washington isn't working for us. . . . He's the reason the mess exists. He's the reason the president is wrongly using executive orders."

McConnell says his plan for policy riders on funding bills is not intended to shut down the government

In a wide-ranging interview with Manu Raju of Politico last week, published today, Sen. Mitch McConnell made clear that if he becomes Senate majority leader, he would use appropriations bills to force concessions from President Obama on environmental and other issues, including anti-coal and water-pollution regulations.

Raju described the strategy as forcing Obama to "accept bills reining in the administration’s policies or veto them and risk a government shutdown," and that brought almost immediate howls of protest from Democrats. But McConnell said after a forum today with Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, "I didn't use that word at all. ... I'm the guy who gets us out of government shutdowns. I don't believe in government shutdowns."

McConnell told Raju, "We’re going to pass spending bills, and they’re going to have a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy. That’s something he won’t like, but that will be done. I guarantee it." Raju notes, "If Obama refuses to accept such measures, a government shutdown could ensue. Republicans bore much of the blame for last year’s government shutdown, which was prompted by conservative tactics McConnell opposed, and their fortunes rebounded only when the administration bungled the rollout of Obamacare."

The senator's main target is the Environmental Protection Agency, which has proposed to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants, a dagger to the already suffering Appalachian coal industry, and to extend its Clean Water Act regulations to all "waters of the United States," which McConnell called "every puddle in America" at a forum sponsored by the Kentucky Farm Bureau, whose national parent is a leading opponent of the idea.

Raju's story dealt mainly with the workings of the Senate, and he did not delve into policy details, but McConnell has already tried to add an EPA rider to an appropriations bill, and he made clear during and after the forum that those two regulatory efforts will be his targets if he is re-elected, Republicans take control of the Senate and he becomes majority leader. And he indicated that he hopes for some bipartisan leverage: "There are many Democrats who share our concerns."

UPDATE, Aug. 21: Democrats have been "firing back" at McConnell's "suggestion that Republicans, if they win control of the Senate, would possibly threaten to shutdown the government to force policy changes from President Barack Obama," reports Mark Murray of NBC News. White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted, "McConnell's case for a GOP Senate -- more shutdowns, more brinkmanship, more gridlock, less progress." Murray reports, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said, "Once again, we're seeing that Republicans see government shutdowns as partisan tools, not economic disasters. It's exactly this kind of reckless gamesmanship that led to the last shutdown and is leaving the door open for another at the end of September. For the sake of our economy, this Republican Congress needs to take shutdowns off the table once and for all."

'These people are against everything we stand for,' McConnell says of Clintons, Obama and EPA

By Cheyene Miller and Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

CORBIN, Ky. -- Starting a two-day, 10-county bus tour through the East Kentucky Coal Field, Sen. Mitch McConnell and U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers linked Alison Lundergan Grimes to President Obama, his anti-coal policies and loss of miners' jobs in the region.

Mitch McConnell speaks in Corbin. (Photo by Cheyene Miller)

After recounting his history with former President Bill Clinton, who campaigned with Grimes in Hazard and Lexington the day before, and Hillary Clinton and Obama, McConnell said in Corbin, “These people are against everything we stand for. They're against our way of life and we're going to stop 'em.”

Noting in Middlesboro that Grimes had labeled herself "a Clinton Democrat" in Hazard, McConnell said, "There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between a Clinton Democrat and an Obama Democrat when it comes to coal. We will not be fooled!"

Speaking at Whayne Supply in Corbin, a major vendor to the coal industry, McConnell said Clinton "wildly applauded" Obama's proposed limits on carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. He said “Congress would not pass what the administration is now doing by itself,” when Democrats controlled it. He was referring to a "cap and trade" plan that would have created a market for air-pollution credits; Obama's plan has caps, but no trading.

At Middlesboro, McConnell argued that Obama's plan to fight global warming "is going to be about as effective as dropping a pebble in the ocean" because the rest of the world is moving toward coal. In Corbin, he called for actions to allow coal to make resurgence in Kentucky, and for the EPA to “get off our backs.”

McConnell, in his 30th year as a senator, pressed voters to give him a sixth term. He and Rogers held out the prospect, considered more likely than not by most experts, that Republicans will take control of the Senate in the Nov. 4 elections and make McConnell the new Senate majority leader.

In Corbin, McConnell called Grimes “new face for the status quo” and said “We have an opportunity to begin to change our country.”

In Middlesboro, he said, “You’re unhappy with what they’ve done to our country, the way they’re turning us into a Western European country, the way they question our values, the way they question the way we live. These are people who do not understand us and do not respect us, and this is the year that we begin to take America back. . . . It begins by making me the leader of a new majority to take us in a different direction."

To applause in Middlesboro, Rogers said he and the Republican-controlled House had "cut the EPA’s budget three years in a row by upwards of 20 percent," only to be thwarted by the Democratic-controlled Senate. "I can’t wait to be able to send that bill back over there with a 20 percent or whetever cut to the EPA and its personnel, send it to Mitch McConnell as majority leader and he passes it through the Senate," Rogers said. "That’s gonna be sweet."

Rogers, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, blamed the loss of 8,000 coal-mining jobs in his Fifth District on Democratic and EPA policies, though industry experts have said the major factor in the job losses has been a flood of cheap natural gas from horizontal hydraulic fracturing, switching power plants from coal to gas.

"If we can just survive through the Obama presidency and live, we’ll be lucky," he said. "We need the strongest, most powerful voice we can find to rep Kentucky and our coal-mining industry and the coal miners, active and retired, to fight to Kentucky’s cause in Washington."

At Corbin, Rogers was asked whether Obama had delivered on what he said last year in a speech outlining his climate-change policies, that areas affected by the policies should get special help. “I’ve not seen any help,” said Rogers, who accused the president of “flooding our minds with spectacles.”