McConnell says he's against privatizing Social Security, but now he says Kynect really is only a website

A rolling roundup that will grow as the final weekend moves along . . .

• Sen. Mitch McConnell "said Friday he is not in favor of privatizing Social Security, even if he becomes the new majority leader of the U.S. Senate," Ronnie Ellis reports for CNHI News Service. “I don’t know anybody in favor of privatizing Social Security and I never heard anybody even suggest it, certainly not myself,” McConnell told reporters at an event in Lexington. For the previous week, he had declined to reveal what plans he might have for Social Security, and "Grimes’ campaign has criticized McConnell for what it says have been conflicting statements on measures to privatize Social Security, going back to the administration of Republican President George W. Bush," Ellis writes. "McConnell said it’s a standard Democratic practice to raise alarms about Social Security late in elections."
• McConnell went farther than he may have intended in talking to the editorial board of the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville (which endorsed him) about the health-insurance exchange the state created under Obamacare, saying that "Kynect is a website. That's all it is." In the KET debate, McConnell only implied it was merely a website. To that, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, who created it, said: "Mitch told Kentuckians he'd keep the website up, while pulling the plug on federal funding, tax credits, and tearing down a marketplace that has made Kentucky a model of success for the nation." For the New Era's transcript of the interview, which was published last weekend, click here.
• Both campaigns are complaining about the other side's mailers. Grimes is suing the state Republican Party, and the McConnell campaign says it's exploring its legal options, Nick Storm reports for cn|2's "Pure Politics."
• In his column for The Courier-Journal, University of Kentucky journalism professor Al Cross looks back on 30 years of covering McConnell and wonders what he will do if he becomes majority leader, the post he has sought for so long.
• McConnell gave the weekly national radio address for the Republican Party, saying a GOP majority in the Senate could end Washington gridlock.

Herald-Leader gives big play to nonprofit's story about 'dark money' group's big help for McConnell

Here's what we have time to post in a whirlwind of activity . . .

• A nonprofit group that was taken over by a former aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell has aired one of every seven television commercials in the Senate race, most of them attacking Alison Lundergan Grimes, with millions of dollars from donors it will not disclose, the Center for Public Integrity reports, in a story that the Lexington Herald-Leader placed on its front page. UPDATE, Oct. 31: National Journal's Alex Roarty and Shane Goldmacher show how the rules against coordination between such groups and candidates is easily circumvented.
• NPR reports that conservatives criticized McConnell for telling Neil Cavuto of Fox News that Republicans would not be able to repeal Obamacare because they will not have 60 votes in the Senate. "McConnell said that with a full Obamacare repeal impossible, he would instead push to repeal the law's tax on medical devices — which a number of Democratic senators already support — and to narrow its mandate on which workers must be covered."
• McConnell primary foe Matt Bevin "came as close as he has to endorsing" McConnell at a quiet gathering of conservatives in Jeffersontown Wednesday night, the Herald-Leader's Sam Youngman reports. "Bevin tried to warm up the subdued audience," saying that any thinking about voting for Grimes should "think again." He added, "There is nothing being brought forward by the Democratic Party in this state that is good for Kentucky. Nothing." Still, Youngman writes, "He continued to be cagey about backing McConnell. . . . Asked after his speech whether that was an endorsement of McConnell, Bevin snapped, 'You've got ears.'"
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/29/3508714/at-a-quiet-conservatives-rally.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/29/3508714/at-a-quiet-conservatives-rally.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy
• Former president Bill Clinton is appearing in Louisville and Ashland today for Grimes. The first stop, at the Muhammad Ali Center, may help Grimes with African American turnout, which some black observers have said might be hurt by her refusal to say that she voted for President Obama; the second one will get coverage from West Virginia TV stations that serve the northern part of the East Kentucky Coal Field.
• The Economist sums up the race, largely by looking at McConnell as the leader of a potential Senate majority, "as seems likely." If so, "a man few Americans would recognise if he sat next to them on a bus, will be one of the most powerful people in the world," the magazine says in an editorial.
• Grimes pollster Mark Mellman, asked about the race at Bipartisan Policy Center event today, said "We’re not ahead. But we hope to be on Election Day." U.S. News & World Report's David Catanese notes, "Grimes’ team has furiously fought back at the notion that McConnell has pulled far ahead of them in recent weeks, but has not released its own internal polling by Mellman as it did back in September, when he showed the race tied."

Which McConnell would be Senate majority leader: the hard-line party stalwart or the pragmatic negotiator?

McConnell (Photo by Mark Cornelison)

In an article appearing in Saturday’s Lexington Herald-Leader, Washington Bureau reporter Sean Cockerham of McClatchy Newspapers asks "which version of" Sen. Mitch McConnell will appear if he wins re-election and is promoted to Senate majority leader.

Would it be "the pragmatic deal maker, or the partisan whose feuds the past several years with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have helped define the most dysfunctional Congress of modern times?" Cockerham looks at McConnell’s extensive history in the Senate, but focuses more on his recent leadership of the Republican caucus in opposition to President Obama: "McConnell is known as a skilled tactician and, until the election of Obama at least, as more a pragmatist than a partisan."

That suggests that McConnell has more to gain from his record as a negotiator in 2008 with Reid, and later with Vice President Biden, than as a hard-line party stalwart. However, Cockerham quotes Norman Ornstein, "a centrist scholar on politics and Congress at the American Enterprise Institute," as saying that McConnell's "use of the filibuster as a weapon of mass obstruction" raises doubts about McConnell’s assertion that a Senate led by him would not block amendments in the way Reid has.

"McConnell laid out a more confrontational vision at a private gathering organized by the billionaire Koch brothers in June," Cockerham notes, using "the spending bill" to targeting the Environmental Protection Agency, Obamacare and financial reform, perhaps under budget-reconciliation rules that block filibusters by the minority. "He'd risk a politically damaging government shutdown."

McConnell biographer John David Dyche "believes McConnell as majority leader would want to work with both parties to get things accomplished, but that it would be up to the other Republican senators how much he’d be able to do so," Cockerham reports. "He likely would be running a Senate with just a razor-thin Republican majority, riven by internal divisions between tea party acolytes and centrists over issues such as spending and immigration."

Students cover issues in the Senate race

Students in "Covering the U.S. Senate Race," a special course in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications, are covering issues in the race between Sen. Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan Grimes. To read stories on immigration, health care and the economy and jobs, click here.

Roundup: Sunday takeouts, comment and a tour map

A roundup from Sunday's newspapers and more . . .

• Jim Carroll of The Courier-Journal profiles Sen. Mitch McConnell, "a hair's breadth away from attaining his life's ambition" of being Senate majority leader. "Should that happen, friends and allies of McConnell see an opportunity for him to remake the Senate."
• McConnell pitched his leadership prospects to a Republican crowd in Owensboro, Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "This is not just about bragging rights for me personally, this is about you and whether or not our state is going to be in a very prominent role in setting the agenda,” McConnell said.
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/18/3488398_mcconnell-tells-w-kentucky-becoming.html?sp=/99/322/&rh=1#storylink=cpy
• The C-J's Joe Gerth writes that if Alison Lundergan Grimes wins, she will owe Bill and Hillary Clinton. He quotes a Grimes remark, during Hillary Clinton's visit to Louisville Wednesday: “Mitch McConnell just doesn’t think that Kentuckians know how to do math. You see, this election is not about who’s in the White House now, the president has two more years. This is a six year term. It’s about the senator who will work the next four years with whoever is in the White House, no matter who he or she might be.” With that, Grimes pointed at Clinton.
• In other C-J columns, University of Kentucky journalism professor Al Cross writes in his C-J column that Grimes and McConnell are both doing "flim-flam," Grimes in her broadcast ads on immigration and McConnell in their only debate, on what he would do for Obamacare's beneficiaries if it were repealed; and Carroll cites the latter in saying that President Obama has become a liability for both candidates.
• For the Herald-Leader, columnist Larry Dale Keeling says the news media made "a kerfluffle over nothing," the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's ending of ad buys in Kentucky.
• Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post can't understand Grimes's refusal to say if she voted for Obama: "The voters who would be alienated by a straightforward answer are probably already lost to Grimes, but I can imagine wavering voters being turned off by her dodginess. Even worse is Grimes’s sanctimonious effort to wrap her evasiveness in patriotic bunting, the 'sanctity of the ballot box' and the privacy protections for voters enshrined in the state Constitution."
• Grimes made six stops in Eastern Kentucky on Saturday; here's a story from Lana Bellamy of the Ashland Independent. Grimes visited some of the same counties that McConnell will see on a three-day tour Monday through Wednesday, for which he is seeking volunteers to accompany him. Here's a map of McConnell's route and the counties Grimes visited, created with MapQuest and Photoshop:
  
  
  The East Kentucky Coal Field generally runs eastward from the Daniel Boone National Forest, the southwest-to-northeast swath of green on the map.
• Scott Wartman of The Kentucky Enquirer fact-checks "the war on coal." Bret Baier of Fox News did a takeout story on the issue as part of an hour-long package; it airs again Sunday night at 9 EDT.

Grimes immigration ad questioned; Obama vote flap, McConnell ad and his lines on Kynect draw fire

A rolling roundup while waiting for Hillary . . .

• Former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton will appear for Alison Lundergan Grimes tonight in Louisville. Philip M. Bailey of Louisville's WFPL reports that every county has a sign (right). The campaign says it will videostream the event at http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KDu8gjJi%2FhY5spoZeXWyv9USJipC9b3f. Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign spokeswoman, Allison Moore, said in an email, "The only possible reason why Alison Grimes would throw a party for Hillary Clinton but refuse to admit she voted for Barack Obama is that she thinks we're all too stupid to figure out they have the exact same policy views. Instead of highly produced events with celebrity guests, most Kentuckians would settle for an honest answer from Alison Grimes on anything related to the job of a U.S. senator."
• Pro-immigration groups are calling on Grimes to pull her newest television and radio commercial, in which she says "I've never supported amnesty or benefits for illegal immigrants and I never will" and a narrator uses the term "illegal aliens." Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader, "After speaking at a Commerce Lexington policy breakfast Wednesday morning, Grimes refused to acknowledge or answer repeated questions about whether her campaign will pull the ad."
• The ad says, "Only Mitch McConnell has voted to give amnesty and taxpayer-funded benefits to 3 million illegal aliens," as small type notes that was in 1985 and 1986. "Mitch is at the heart of everything that's wrong in Washington, from hypocrisy to greed to gridlock." Viewers may infer that Grimes opposes such measures, but she repeated at the breakfast that she favors a Senate-passed bill that would create "a pathway to citizenship" for undocumented immigrants if "You've got a good job, you have a background check, you learn English, you pay your taxes."
  
• An ad McConnell started this week, featuring undercover video of Grimes supporters saying or suggesting that she doesn't really mean what she says about coal, doesn't prove the charge, Robert Farley writes for FactCheck.org. The ad claims the videos of "Grimes' own staff and donors show Grimes is lying," but there is no proof that the "staff" members are or were.
• McConnell has a new ad, about his sponsorship of a law that increased funding to expedite DNA testing, with emphasis on its use in sexual-assault cases.
• Chuck Todd, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," is sticking by his remark that Grimes "disqualified herself" by refusing to say if she voted for President Obama, which McConnell is using in a TV ad. Todd told The Huffington Post, "Campaigns that try to make others the issue are usually trying to avoid their own scrutiny. . . . No journalist likes to be used in a TV ad. It is cheap and likely useless."
• Some observers said Grimes' continued refusal to reveal her vote wasn't as important as McConnell's characterization of Obamacare's Kentucky element as "a website." Danny Vinik writes for The New Republic, a liberal magazine, "You’d expect such a ridiculous argument to be the highlight of the debate with the media quickly and easily debunking it."
• Ron Fournier of the nonpartisan, middle-of-the road National Journal writes, "What's more disqualifying? A Democrat who refuses to say whether she voted for President Obama, or a Republican who waffles on Obamacare and essentially calls it 'fine'? . . . He can't have it both ways. Uprooting Obamacare upends Kynect. . . . He's playing with the health of 500,000 Kentuckians. He's misleading conservatives who don't think Obamacare is 'fine.' He's a hypocrite."

Coverage roundup: good debate, lots of weaseling; nationals fixate on Obama-vote flap, locals don't

Debate coverage from all over (recording is now online):

• The debate was "really good," says John Harwood of CNBC and The Wall Street Journal. Alison Lundergan Grimes "performed very well" for a newcomer, and "Mitch McConnell was the best Mitch McConnell can be. . . . The moderator was also good."
  
• Grimes "struck an aggressive pose as she repeatedly interrupted and lobbed attacks at McConnell, who often gave long, lecture-style answers," reports Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
• Youngman writes for The Daily Beast, "it is still unclear how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would simultaneously reopen the amendment process in the Senate while not allowing votes on 'all these gosh darn proposals' like raising the minimum wage."
• "McConnell, 72, has been the narrow favorite in the race, and Monday’s debate did not appear to dramatically change that reality," writes Susan Davis of USA Today.
• Emily Schultheis of National Journal writes of McConnell, "the one area where he stumbled a bit was over a series of questions about Obamacare and its impact in Kentucky."
• "Grimes may turn some environmentalists’ heads after she put forth a strong defense of climate change science," Politico's Alex Guillen writes. James Hohmann of Politico has 10 key quotes.
• "Each ducked a high-profile question," Grimes on her recent presidential votes and McConnell on climate change, reports Francine Kiefer of the Christian Science Monitor.
• The candidates "reached absurd heights in the art of weasel-wording," writes New York Times editorial writer Juliet Lapidos.
• The debate "was notable for the contentious nature of the exchanges but not the content of the discussion," writes Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal. "Viewers . . . saw the two candidates stick to the talking points they both have been focusing on for the past year and a half — but they were also treated to several volleys that indicated the two really don't like one another."
• The race "has become deeply personal after months of attacks in a race focused on character," writes Alexander Bolton of The Hill. "McConnell painted his opponent as a novice who does not understand the nuances of policymaking, while Grimes characterized him as a self-dealing insider and obstructionist.
• The Washington Post offers video of "the most heated moments of the debate."
• Liberal columnist Greg Sargent of the Post writes, "If Grimes were to admit now that she voted for Obama, that would not only give McConnell the sound bite he wants; it would show her backing down in the face of his attacks after waffling and appearing too weak to stand behind her own vote."
• On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Howard Fineman of Huffington Post said of Grimes's stance, "
  It's both embarrassing and question-raising for her to do that. . . . There are all kinds of ways you can answer that question and hit it out of the park." Fineman said Grimes "should answer so that people like us would stop talking about it. ... She did a petty good job in that debate. ... That was all obscured."
• Actually, local news coverage downplayed the Obama-vote issue. However, "There were almost no memorable moments in the debate, and that could be bad for Grimes," Perry Bacon Jr. writes for NBC News.

Coal, jobs, health care dominate the only real debate

By Brenton Ward, Cheyene Miller, Tyler Spanyer, Ben Tompkins and Megan Ingros
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

            LEXINGTON, Ky. – Coal, jobs, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act were the major subjects of Monday night’s debate between Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes.

 

Grimes, McConnell and moderator Bill Goodman before air.

           The hour-long debate on KET reflected the course of the race, in that Grimes spent most of her time attacking McConnell, and McConnell did likewise with President Obama, trying to link Grimes to him.

            The candidates swerved around many questions, avoiding definitive stances and leaving Kentucky voters unclear of the specifics.

            Perhaps the best example of that was discussion of the health-care law, generally known as Obamacare.

McConnell reiterated that he wants to repeal it “root and branch,” but he was pressed to say what he would do with Kynect, the state health-insurance exchange created under the law, which he repeatedly called a website.

Asked what would happen to Kynect if the law were repealed, he said, “The state exchange can continue it if they want to. . . . States can decide whether or not to expand Medicaid, and our governor has decided to expand Medicaid.”

            Obamacare funds subsidies for private insurance bought through the website. It pays the entire cost of Medicaid for newly eligible patients through 2016, falling to a floor of 90 percent by 2020.

            Pressed about whether he would support the continuance of Kynect, McConnell said, “That’s fine, yeah, I think it’s fine to have a website.”

            Grimes, asked how she would vote on a bill to repeal Obamacare, said, “There is work that we have to do to fix the Affordable Care Act, but we have to have a senator that actually realizes what the realities are here in Kentucky, and the fictional fantasy land that Mitch McConnell is in, doesn’t show the statistics here in this state.”

            Earlier, she said, “This is a matter of standing up for 500,000 Kentuckians” who have obtained coverage through Kynect.” She added, “I will not be a senator that rips that insurance from their hand.” But she offered no new specifics on how she would “streamline” the law.

            The debate was dominated by economic issues, which for both candidates included support of Kentucky’s declining coal industry in the face of Obama administration regulations that would stop construction of coal-fired power plants by putting limits on carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

Asked if the U.S. should take the lead in fighting climate change, McConnell said, “My job is to look after Kentucky’s coal miners.”

Grimes said, “I recognize, unlike Senator McConnell, the realities of global warming, but I do believe we have to take a balanced approach” that protects jobs and “leave this world a better place.”

Grimes noted her endorsement by the United Mine Workers of America and said she supports measures to improve coal mine health and safety and guarantee miners’ benefits.

            McConnell said that Grimes’s first vote in the Senate would be to re-elect as majority leader Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, who he said has blocked all legislation aimed at the anti-coal regulations. He said Grimes broke her vow to raise the issue at a fund-raiser Reid held for her.

            Grimes has said she raised the issue with Reid privately. Last night, she said, “I did have very strong words for Senator Reid regarding an energy policy that he is misguided on.”

            McConnell said in the debate’s opening exchange, “My opponent has spent most of her time trying to deceive everybody about her own views.” Regarding her widely reported refusal to say whether she voted for Obama, even though she was an Obama delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention, he noted that some Democratic officeholders chose not to attend the convention.

            Moderator Bill Goodman asked Grimes why she has been reluctant to say how she voted. She replied, “Bill there’s no reluctance. This is a matter of principle. Our constitution grants, here in Kentucky, the constitutional right for privacy in the ballot box, for a secret ballot.”

Grimes said that as secretary of state, Kentucky’s chief election official, she was obligated to protect such rights. “I’m not going to compromise a constitutional right . . . to curry favor with one or the other side, or members of the media.”

McConnell replied, “There’s no sacred right to not announce how we vote.”

The candidates argued some facts in the debate, and their campaigns kept arguing afterward.

Grimes said a bill to allow refinancing of student loans was bipartisan, but McConnell said it was not. Grimes campaign manager Jonathan Hurst noted afterward that there were 58 votes to end McConnell’s filibuster against the bill; the Senate has 55 Democrats.

            Grimes repeatedly advocated raising the minimum wage, but McConnell said that would cost too many jobs in a soft economy and said it would be better to expand the earned-income tax credit for the working poor. Hurst said McConnell introduced legislation to cut the credit in 2010.

McConnell senior adviser Josh Holmes disputed Grimes’s charge that McConnell had voted to keep tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas: “That’s received the worst possible false rating in almost every publication that’s reviewed it, yet she continues to talk about it.”

The candidates agreed on at least one thing, that the greatest accomplishment of the next six-year Senate term would be to bring more jobs to Kentucky. McConnell said he would be better able to do that because “there’s a great likelihood I will be the leader of the majority,” while Grimes said noted that she had released a jobs plan and McConnell hadn’t.

Grimes vote flap; climate; secret money; Obamacare recipient, a disabled miner, uneasy talking about it

Weekend roundups appear likely for the rest of the race . . .

• Coverage of the race continues to be dominated by Alison Lundergan Grimes's refusal to say whether she voted for President Obama. "Grimes found herself under attack from the right, left and the middle on Friday," reports The Courier-Journal's Joe Gerth.
• "She's just been getting hammered across the national media," reporter Lawrence Smith of WDRB-TV said on KET's "Comment on Kentucky" Friday night. He said the statement by Chuck Todd of NBC News that "She disqualified herself" was "over the top, but that shows you the impact of that non-answer. . . . It feeds this perception that she's a programmed candidate, a consulted candidate." Looking toward Monday night's debate, Smith said Grimes "has to come off as very informed, articulate, not programmed."
• Insider Louisville's Joe Sonka, a critic of Sen. Mitch McConnell, writes about his Twitter exchange with Todd on the topic.
• Grimes also came under fire from conservative, nationally syndicated "Mallard Fillmore" cartoonist Bruce Tinsley, who lives in Southern Indiana, using her as an example of Democrats distancing themselves from Obama:
  
  
• McConnell said the Obama-vote flap "underscores that this entire campaign has been about trying to deceive the voters of Kentucky." Asked if he "voted for Richard Nixon, the only president to resign from office . . . McConnell said, 'I sure did'," in 1972, reports Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
• Gerth writes in his weekly C-J column, "It wasn’t a good week in Kentucky for those of you who like your U.S. Senate candidates to actually answer questions." By not giving his view on climate change, "McConnell was just as guilty of not answering a question — repeatedly — and on a subject one could argue is much more significant and could have consequences not just in this Senate race but in the world."
• McConnell's stance on climate change drew fire from cartoonist Jeff Danziger:
  
  
• Al-Jazeera America has concluded a five-part series on "exploring how political issues are playing out in personal ways in the Bluegrass State this election season," especiallly coal.Part 3 looked at "dark money," the millions of secret contributions to political operations that are inundating Kentucky with ads in the Senate race. "Kentucky has more dark money flowing into it than any other Senate race except Colorado’s," Libby Casey and Philip Maravilla report. They quote University of Kentucky journalism professor and political commentator Al Cross: “I think the more money you have in an election, the less substantive discussion you have of the issues. The candidates let their money and the outside money do the talking for them.”
• A series segment about health care features disabled coal miner Frank Dixon, 52, of Benham, who is on Medicaid because of Obamacare but uncomfortable with it: "Once he was insured, he said, the first thing he did was get his back checked out. But when asked if he supports Obamacare, Dixon lets out a long sigh and fidgets in his chair. 'I don't know how to answer that,' he said. 'Some things are left unsaid.'” For a story from Kentucky Health News, click here.

McConnell backs bill to restore cuts that Obamacare is making to home-health providers

ERLANGER, Ky. -- Sen. Mitch McConnell spoke Thursday at a rally in Northern Kentucky to throw his support behind a bill to reverse cuts that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care made to the home health care industry.

The law cut Medicare home-health funding to be cut 3.5 percent annually over the next four years. The home-health industry cites a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimate that 40 percent of all home health agencies will lose money by 2017.

In endorsing the bill to restore the cuts, McConnell again called the law the "worst piece of legislation in modern history," and said that it is a step on the path towards European-style, single-payer health care. He also said that its passage differed from other major social programs like Medicare, because it was passed on a partisan basis.

McConnell ended his speech by telling the group that if they wanted to change the law, "changing the Senate is a start." He has not said what he would do to replace what he calls “Obamacare” and declined to take questions after the event.

Where the race stands, six weeks before the election

By Anthony Pendleton and Megan Ingros

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Information for this story was also contributed by Paige Hobbs, Cheyene Miller and Tyler Spanyer.

In less than two months, Kentucky voters will head to the polls to vote in the election for the U.S. Senate. Incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell is facing off against national Democratic newcomer Alison Lundergan Grimes.

This is arguably the most important and most-watched race in the nation. McConnell, 72, is the Senate minority leader, meaning he’s the top official of the party that has fewer members in the Senate. He is expected to become majority leader if the GOP wins enough seats to take control of the chamber.

Grimes, 35, would be Kentucky’s first female senator, and the state’s first Democratic senator since 1999. She is Kentucky's secretary of state – a position she won in 2011, her first elected public office.

             As the state’s chief election officer, Grimes got the legislature to approve changes to help overseas military voting, but the new law does not allow soldiers to vote electronically, as she wanted. Grimes also started a program that allows victims of domestic violence and sexual assault to "remove their addresses from public voter registration records in an attempt to stay safe from their abusers," as described by the Lexington Herald-Leader.

             McConnell says his leadership job puts him in the middle of every big decision in Washington, and that he will be even more powerful, as majority leader, if Republicans take control of the Senate. Grimes wants McConnell’s long history in Washington to be viewed as a liability, by painting him as an architect of Washington gridlock.  

             Over the course of his nearly 30-year Senate career, McConnell is best known nationally for his fights against limits on campaign contributions and spending. In a secretly recorded talk in June, he said the 2001 passage of the McCain-Feingold law limiting donations to political parties was “the worst day of my political life.”

             McConnell’s big issue in this race has been coal, blaming Environmental Protection Agency regulations for the loss of mining jobs in Eastern Kentucky. Disinterested observers have noted other factors, especially cheap natural gas that has displaced coal as an electric-generating fuel.

             McConnell has identified Grimes with President Obama, who is unpopular in Kentucky, based largely on her statement during her 2011 campaign that she supported the national Democratic platform. That seems to be working for him, as he has built leads in coal-bearing Eastern and Western Kentucky.

Grimes has replied with an ad saying “I’m not Barack Obama. I disagree with him on guns, coal and the EPA.” She also talks about coal miners’ safety and health, and her campaign has called McConnell’s record on those issues “deplorable.”

             The underlying issue is jobs. Kentucky’s unemployment rate remains higher than the rest of the country, and both candidates promise to promote job growth in the state.

Grimes has tried to make much of McConnell’s remark, when asked in Beattyville what he would do to bring jobs to Lee County, that “Economic development is a Frankfort issue. That is not my job.” McConnell has said he was in Beattyville to discuss jobs, and did so in a speech after the reporter left.

Grimes has focused on economic issues such as equal pay for women -- but has been unable to keep a clear lead among female voters – and raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour over three years, from $7.25.

McConnell, citing a report from the Congressional Budget Office, has said raising the wage to that level would cost half a million jobs, but has also said there might be circumstances in which it could be raised, after the economy improves more.

McConnell wants to repeal the federal health-care reform law while Grimes wants to delay its coverage mandate and make other changes. She says McConnell’s approach would risk the coverage of 521,000 people who have obtained it through the state exchange established under the law.

On immigration, Grimes supports the bipartisan, comprehensive reform bill that passed the Senate and would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. McConnell has said only legal residency is needed to attract needed workers, and immigration reform should be done through separate bills after the border is secure.

Grimes and McConnell have had one joint question-and-answer session, before directors of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation. KET will host a debate between them Oct. 13. The debate will not include Libertarian David Patterson, a 43 year-old Harrodsburg police officer who didn’t get his name on the ballot until August.

To Grimes ad, McConnell quickly counterattacks

A busy Tuesday . . .

• Sen. Mitch McConnell has a new ad, responding to Alison Lundergan Grimes' ad distancing herself from President Obama.
• Grimes's ad "is a continuation of what has become a central theme of Grimes' campaign: Telling voters who she isn't instead of telling them who she is," Sam Youngman writes for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "For more than a year, Kentuckians have heard Grimes say in every conceivable way that she is not McConnell, with cursory efforts to introduce herself or what she stands for — a couple of bio ads and a jobs plan short on specifics. . . . Meanwhile, McConnell's portrayal of Grimes as an appendage of Obama found a receptive audience in the eastern and western parts of the state, and polling shows that McConnell has amassed enormous leads in those regions."
  
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  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/09/15/3431013/sam-youngman-does-alison-lundergan.html?sp=/99/164/329/#storylink=cpy
• The "99 percent" voting record referred to in another McConnell ad is for Senate roll calls, his campaign says. The ad is a response to a Grimes ad saying he has missed 93 percent of Senate committee meetings since 2009.
• "Kentucky is arguably one of the health law’s biggest early success stories," but "There is little evidence that the expansion of health coverage will help Kentucky Democrats in this fall’s midterm elections," Abby Goodnough writes for The New York Times. "Despite his unyielding attacks on the law, Mr. McConnell also takes positions that suggest he knows it would be difficult to dismantle. He has hedged on whether he would take away Medicaid from new enrollees and suggested — without explaining how — that the Kynect marketplace could survive even if the law was repealed."
• The "hedged" line is based on a statement McConnell made to Times national political correspondent Jonathan Martin, who reported it in a collection of leftovers from reporting for his recent Times Magazine profile of McConnell: "When I pressed him about the politics of taking away Medicaid from those individuals that now have it, he suggested that was unlikely – even while still faulting Beshear for the decision. 'I don’t know that it will be taken away from them,' McConnell said of the expanded Medicaid coverage. Speaking about Beshear and Kentucky’s state government, he added: 'They’ve made the decision to expand it, they’re gonna have to pay for it.'"

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.

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."

Fancy Farm face-off: Grimes vs. McConnell vs. Obama

By Megan Ingros and Paige Hobbs

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

FANCY FARM, Ky. – Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes delivered a fierce attack on Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and he did likewise against President Obama as the candidates duked it out rhetorically in front of a record crowd at the 134th annual Fancy Farm Picnic.

McConnell delivered a five-and-a-half minute broadside – two and half minutes less than his allotted time – on Obama and his administration, arguing that the only way to change Washington this year is to make him the majority leader in the Senate.

“Fancy Farm is fun but there are serious problems confronting our country ... and the president acts like he’s on a PGA tour,” he said, referring to Obama's recent golf outings and criticizing Obama for not going to the border to see the immigration crisis himself. “The reality is that the Obama administration and the liberal allies are making America weaker at home and abroad, by any standard Barack Obama has been a disaster for our country.”

Using the refrain “Sound familiar?” to compare Obama and Grimes, McConnell said the president “was only two years into his first job when he started campaigning for the next one ... his campaign raised millions from extreme liberals ... he really didn’t have any qualifications at all (and) every time he got in trouble and his inexperience became obvious he called in Bill Clinton.” The former president is to make his second and third appearances for Grimes Wednesday in Lexington and Hazard.

“There’s only one thing Barack needs to keep his grip on power, McConnell said. “He needs the U.S. Senate.”

The candidates and their spouses greeted each other as the 2 p.m. speaking time neared. (Getty Images)

Grimes, who lost the coin toss and spoke first, had her own refrain, picked up by supporters in the crowd: “doesn’t care.” She told him, “After three decades in Washington, you’ve just given up. You don’t care about us anymore. Thanks to you, D.C. stands for doesn’t care.”

Using all but 10 second of her allotted eight minutes, Grimes emphasized issues of women’s pay equity, student-loan debt relief, a minimum wage hike and, most often, jobs.

"If Mitch McConnell were a TV show he'd be 'Mad Men'," she said. "Treating women unfairly, stuck in 1968 and ending this season."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/01/3359867/live-updates-political-candidates.html?sp=/99/322/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy

Referring to a McConnell aide's online claim that the Harlan County community of Cloverlick, site of one of her TV ads, was not a real place, Grimes said, "If Mitch McConnell doesn't know where your town is, it makes it that much harder for him to ship your jobs overseas."

She added later, "If you are worried about jobs going overseas, who do you think will fight for you? It's time we had a senator who represents the people of this state and not partisan political interests. . . . I want you to put aside the partisan attacks and you'll see one of us represents the Washington establishment, one of us represents Kentucky. One of us represents the past; one of us represents the future. One of us wants just six more years, yet another term, but one of us knows Kentucky deserves better."

Grimes's speech resonated with Ed Elder, 53, a maintenance manager who worked at Paducah's endangered atomic-energy plant for many years. "McConnell came to us and said he was through, he was tired, and had done all he could for the plant ... so when someone tells me they are through with me, I'm through with them," Elder said in an interview before the speaking.

But Albany educator Rudy Thomas, 66, said before the speeches that he was voting for McConnell, whom he called "great." While many if not most who attended the picnic's political speaking already know who they're voting for come November and serve only as supporters during the speeches, others attend to be persuaded.

Tim Thurston, a health-care professional from the Graves County crossroads of Boaz, said before the speaking that he was undecided, using the candidate speeches as a way to draw the line. "Health care is most important to me along with military and taxes." (He couldn't be reached afterward.)

The candidates didn't mention the latter two issues, and only McConnell referred to health care, calling for repeal of "Obamacare."

Health care wasn't mentioned by Gov. Steve Beshear, who embraced Obamacare, but he led off the speaking by taking a selfie with the seated McConnell, explaining, "I just had to get one last photo of the senator before Kentucky voters retire him in November" and attacking McConnell and praising Grimes for most of his speech. The pair ran against each other 18 years ago.

Sen. Rand Paul did for McConnell much as Beshear did for Grimes, leading off with a limerick about Grimes and saying "Barack Obama has one goal this year, to hang on to the Senate this year."

Both candidates look back 30 years at political-party breakfasts preceding Fancy Farm Picnic

The two political parties warmed up for the Fancy Farm Picnic this morning with rousing speeches from the U.S. Senate nominees to big crowds at breakfasts in Mayfield.

By Megan Ingros

At the Graves County Republican Breakfast, Sen. Mitch McConnell discussed the political changes in Kentucky during his nearly 30 years in office. Despite his Louisville roots, he said, "Today the smaller the town, the better I do."

McConnell at breakfast (Paducah Sun photo)

McConnell touched on three main issues: health reform, jobs and foreign policy, in each case criticizing President Obama, his main focus of attack in the race.

"The reason we haven't had the kind of bounce back we normally have after a recession is because of the Obama administration itself. . . . It's hard to think of a single thing they haven't messed up," he said. "They think if you're making a profit then you're up to no good. . . . "There's no more conspicuous example of this than the war on coal."

On foreign policy, McConnell implicitly criticized the secretary of state. "The last thing we need is John Kerry trying to force the Israels to make a bad deal. . . . We need to stand by our Israeli friends and this administration needs to get with the program."

McConnell closed with his main argument, that people frustrated with Obama can do only one thing in this year's election, give Republicans control of the Senate and make him majority leader. "My opponent will tell you she's a new face ... She's a new face for Brack Obama. She's a new face for Harry Reid. she's a  new face for no change at all."

By Paige Hobbs

Alison Lundergan Grimes filled the packed room at the Graves County Democratic breakfast with criticism of McConnell and emphasis on jobs.

"It is my number-one priority is to put hardworking Kentuckians back to work," she said. "Hardworking Kentuckians across this commonwealth, they don't just deserve a minimum wage, they need a living wage, and as your senator that's what I'll fight for."

Grimes said that "after three decades, 30 years in Washington, it's Mitch McConnell that has gone Washington, that is out of touch, he has given up on us; it seems he just doesn't care. D.C, in fact, D.C. has come to stand for 'doesn't care' when it comes to giving hardworking Kentuckians a fighting chance to actually survive and increase the minimum wage, Mitch McConnell doesn't care. I do."

Grimes urged the crowd "to bring this race across the finish line" and she ended with a line that she flubbed at the Marshall County Democratic Party bean supper Friday night: "They may have a concession stands at Fancy Farm today but come November 4, Mitch McConnell, he'll be giving a concession speech."

July 15 roundup: Local coverage, big money, abortion-group ads and more gender politics

Here's an illustration of why local news media should cover and record (preferably on video) the Senate candidates when they come to town:

• Sen. Mitch McConnell "seemed to have little sympathy for students who have accumulated massive amounts of student debt during a town hall with constituents last week," Amanda Terkel writes for the Huffington Post. Asked in Oldham County "what changes should be made so that students aren't leaving school with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt," McConnell said there should be any government intervention and that students should look into schools that are cheaper. "Not everybody needs to go to Yale. I don't know about you guys, but I went to a regular ol' Kentucky college," McConnell said. He is a graduate of the University of Louisville and the law school at the University of Kentucky. Terkel's report was based on a story by The Oldham Era's Taylor Riley, whose report included a 36-minute video of McConnell's remarks.
• Grimes said she raised more than $4 million in the second quarter of the year, setting a Kentucky record and besting McConnell's $3.1 million. She having reported $6.2 million in her campaign treasury while McConnell reported $9.8 million. Complete reports aren't readily available today because senators have blocked making their reports digital. 
• Over the weekend, NPR reporter Tamara Keith provided a synopsis of what you could buy in Kentucky for $100 million, the predicted total expenses in the Senate race. "You could buy a bottle of the state's own Maker's Mark whiskey for nearly every man, woman and child in the state," Keith said. The race could end up being the most expensive in history. McConnell's unpopularity in Kentucky created an opening for Grimes, and "not only are the candidates and political parties spending big; so are outside groups," reports Keith.
• "A national abortion rights group is launching an attack ad against McConnell for 'never doing the right thing for Kentucky women'," Joe Arnold of Louisville's WHAS-TV reports. A NARAL Pro-Choice America spokeswoman told Arnold the group made "a mid-range five-figure ad buy for cable and another mid-range five figure ad buy online in the Lexington and Louisville markets," both of which are modest. Alison Lundergan Grimes said "the Supreme Court 'got it wrong' in the Hobby Lobby case," reports Arnold. McConnell's campaign spokeswoman said, "If you need to know who Alison Lundergan Grimes intends to represent if elected, consider that radical abortion groups are now descending upon Kentucky to run ads on her behalf. The fact that Alison Lundergan Grimes cannot even support Sen. McConnell's common-sense efforts to curb late-term abortions shows Kentuckians that her agenda aligns with President Obama and extreme pro-abortion groups in Washington."
• McConnell's campaign released a statement regarding McConnell's remarks on the Senate floor today on the "struggles of middle-class women under Obamacare," but the only distinction he made about women was to say that "Research shows that women make about 80 percent of the health-care decisions for their families in this country."
• McConnell played a little gender politics in criticizing President Obama's decision to replace Cheryl LaFleur as chairwoman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with “a male nominee with less experience,” reports Ramsey Cox of The Hill. "McConnell pointed out that Bay has never served as a state utility regulator or as a FERC commissioner. Republicans and some pro-fossil fuel Democrats opposed Bay’s nomination in committee."
• "In a web video released Monday, McConnell's campaign counters Grimes's claims about McConnell's stance on Medicare policy with excerpts of last week's news coverage which uniformly reported that Grimes's commercial is misleading," Joe Arnold of WHAS 11 reports. The first 20 seconds of the video begins with Grimes's ad, "then proceeds with clips from local television stories and national fact-checking wings of newspapers which reached similar conclusions about the commercial," Arnold says, but the video does not include "critiques of factual problems with McConnell's commercial produced in response to the Grimes ad.".
• Grimes' campaign released a statement regarding McConnell's history in Washington and his 2011 vote to advance the budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. McConnell "voted against extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed," the statement noted.
• Harry Enten of Five Thirty Eight writes that polls have over-estimated Democratic Senate candidates' strength in Kentucky and Georgia, the two states where national Democrats are trying to unseat incumbents. In Kentucky, polling data shows Grimes trailing McConnell by only 1.5 percentage points, but the political-statistics website gives her less than a 20 percent chance of winning.

Warren's visit for Grimes is covered somewhat differently by different reporters and news outlets

Different takes on Sen. Elizabeth Warren's campaigning for Alison Grimes:

• In Louisville, where today's events occurred, Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal says Warren "brought her brand of populism to Kentucky" and accused Sen. Mitch McConnell of "betting against you vote after vote after vote, year after year after year," most recently on Warren's bill to allow refinancing of college loans. Gerth notes that Grimes "refused to take questions following the event, ignoring a gaggle of reporters," and ends his 603-word online story with one brief line from the other side: "McConnell's campaign has been critical of the Warren visit, saying that it showed that Grimes is out of touch with Kentucky voters."
• In the second paragraph of his 610-word online story, Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader plays off a Warren line about being surprised to be in Kentucky because she is surprised to be a senator: "Given that Warren's stances on guns, coal and health care align closely with those of President Barack Obama, Republican allies of ... McConnell also were surprised but delighted when Warren announced she was coming." Among his quotes from Warren: "Alison and I don't agree on everything. We don't. But we agree that there is a lot on the line here. Our economy, our country, our values." The story ends with two paragraphs from McConnell's campaign, including a 50-word quote.
• Adam Beam, Frankfort correspondent for The Associated Press, led his 674-word story with an example of a student who would benefit from loan refinancing and the fact that "Tuition and fees at Kentucky’s public colleges and universities have increased 110 percent over the last decade." Beam summarizes the candidates' and Warren's positions on the issue and notes, "McConnell’s campaign has not countered Grimes on college tuition, instead focusing on the person Grimes has chosen to promote the plan." He concludes with a quote from a McConnell news release.
• Ronnie Ellis of Community Newspaper Holdings ends his 718-word story likewise and starts by saying that Warren cast the race as a simple choice: McConnell, who "represents the interests of the wealthy and says 'no, no, no' to measures to assist the middle class. Or voters from a relatively poor state can vote to replace him with ... Grimes, who will represent their economic interests." But "in a brief interview" with Ellis, Waren wouldn't get more personal, saying, "This is about Alison." She said her populist message would work in Kentucky, and Ellis writes, "It worked Sunday morning. Warren evoked echoes of a former kind of Kentucky Democrat, like Wendell Ford who was governor from 1971 to 1974," when he began a 28-year Senate career.
  
  Or voters from a relatively poor state can vote to replace him with Democratic Alison Lundergan Grimes, who will represent their economic interests. - See more at: http://www.glasgowdailytimes.com/local/x1760117504/Warren-stumps-for-Grimes-blasts-McConnell-on-economic-issues#sthash.isgnXB7v.dpuf
• Matt Viser of The Boston Globe, in Warren's home state of Massachusetts, says she "was in full campaign mode Sunday, thrusting her fists in the air and delivering folksy aphorisms with a slight twang as she relentlessly attacked" McConnell; and her trips to Kentucky and West Virginia "represent a test of whether her brand of liberal populism, which has captivated the national left, can also appeal in the South and help Democrats defend their hold on the Senate majority. The results of this experiment could have far reaching consequences, not only for her own political fortunes but for the party’s efforts to reconnect with Southern, white, working-class voters." Viser's story includes material from Warren's first of two fund-raisers for Grimes, Saturday night in Northern Kentucky; no story on any of the events could be found on The Cincinnati Enquirer's website by 11:20 p.m. Sunday.
• For a text and video report on Warren's speech to a rally of about 500 students and others at the University of Louisville, from Nick Storm of cn|2's "Pure Politics," click here.
• The event was "Observers, however, noted the crowded Grimes event lacked a high number of college-aged students in the audience," Phillip Bailey of WFPL notes in a story that ends with good back-and-forth from the two sides.

June 18 roundup: McConnell offers tax break for child care in home offices; Grimes blasts his record on jobs

After several loads of coal, the focus of the race shifted to jobs:

• McConnell introduced a bill that he said “would fix a flaw in the tax code so that men or women who work from home aren’t prevented from claiming a deduction for a home office if that office includes a baby crib so they can care for their child while working.” He said the bill “would not only help parents save on child care costs, it would help increase their earning potential by incentivizing them to create new income streams from home.” Grimes replied, “While we're glad he changed his mind at the last minute on the need for affordable child care, Kentuckians know that he opposed the Family and Medical Leave Act and voted to slash childcare services in Kentucky. His last ditch legislation doesn't go far enough.” She noted that she has called for tax breaks to businesses that provide on-site child care or help employees find child care.
• McConnell outlined several Republican proposals to help working families, in a speech on the Senate floor. Grimes said McConnell only pretends to care about workers' wages. 
• Grimes visited Accuride's Henderson manufacturing plant Tuesday afternoon," talked about her jobs plan and took several blows at her opponent," reports Kayla Moody of WTVW in Evansville. "Although Grimes’ Western Kentucky visit focused on jobs, she acknowledged the ongoing turmoil in Iraq, making her stance on American involvement clear," against sending troops to Iraq. McConnell "urged the Obama administration to act quickly to assist the besieged Iraqi government, but ... stopped short of saying what U.S. assistance to Baghdad should look like," The Courier-Journal reports.
• The Beattyville Enterprise reports that Grimes is considering its proposal for a debate in the Lee County seat, but McConnell has not replied to the invitation. Grimes campaigned in Beattyville to put more attention on McConnell's comment that it was not his job to bring jobs to the county. He says he was misunderstood. "He did say he has been fighting ... Obama over policies that he said lose jobs for the state, the Enterprise reports.
• President Obama is raising money for a political action committee that has run ads attacking McConnell, WFPL reports. "Kentucky Republicans are hoping to connect Obama's appearance at the fundraiser to ... Grimes, who has tried mightily to keep the president at arm's length. . . . The Grimes campaign isn't taking GOP attempts to link her to the super PAC lightly, noting they have called on McConnell to disavow all outside groups."
• Gov. Steve Beshear slammed McConnell and other critics of federal health reform for "attempting to be for a state program that is no different from Obamacare," Jim Carroll reports for The Courier-Journal. Beshear alluded to McConnell's statement at a May 23 news conference that his criticism was unconnected to the future of Kynect, the state health-insurance exchange funded by the law.
• The Mountain Eagle of Whitesburg published a 784-word roundup about the candidates' battle on coal issues, and was among newspapers using one of the four campaign-supplied color photos of Grimes in the MRM Mining underground mine at McDowell last week.
• McConnell will make "a legislative announcement" at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce offices in Fort Mitchell Friday "and his office has requested the presence of Covington city leaders," KyForward reports, but the purpose of the visit is unknown.

McConnell presses Grimes to say how she feels about Obmacare but won't bite on questions about Kynect

At his first post-primary press conference, Sen. Mitch McConnell pressed Alison Lundergan Grimes to clarify her position on the federal health-care reform law but wouldn't say whether his plan to "start over" on the issue would include shutting down the state's successful health-insurance exchange.

"She's been dodging it for a year," McConnell said Friday. "She's been in this race for a year. It's time for her to answer the question, "How do you feel about it?" Wednesday, Grimes twice refused to say how she would have voted on the 2010 law if she had been a senator.

McConnell speaks at half-hour press conference.
(Associated Press photo by Timothy D. Easley)

The topic arose when McConnell was asked to reply to Democratic assertions that his pledge to "pull it out root and branch" would end the law's insurance coverage for 415,000 Kentuckians through the state exchange.

The senator didn't answer directly. "This is another good reason why the two of us ought to have a real debate," he said, recalling his post-primary proposal for three Lincoln-Douglas-style debates by the middle of September.

Asked if he would dismantle the state exchanges created under the law, McConnell said he would have created a national market -- "tear down the walls, the 50 separate silos in which health insurance is sold" -- passed medical-malpractice reform, and allowed small businesses to "band together in this international [sic] market."

Asked again, specifically, if he would shut down Kentucky's exchange, which is branded as Kynect, he said "I think that's unconnected to my comments about the overall question here."

While polls have shown the law to be unpopular in Kentucky, a small plurality of voters in a recent poll had a favorable opinion of Kynect. Last fall, the Kentucky Health Issues Poll found that people who weren't sure how the law would affect them and their families had an unfavorable opinion of it, while those who said they did know how it would affect them had a favorable opinion.

In his overall comments about the law, McConnell said a Congressional Budget Office study has predicted that full implementation of the law would still leave 30 million Americans uninsured, covering only 10 million. "What is the cost-benefit ratio of this kind of destruction, this kind of impact, on 16 percent of the economy?" he asked. "The people of this state are entitled to know the answer to the question, 'How do you feel about it?' and I think my opponent has tried to dodge that question."

Asked if repealing the law would be his top priority as majority leader if Republicans take control of the Senate, he said he wasn't ready to say because he's not in the majority yet, "but I think it's reasonable to assume that would be a high priority for us." He noted that Obama will be president until January 2017, an implicit acknowledgement that Obama would veto any repeal and two-thirds votes of the House and Senate would be required to override him.

Other topics

Asked if he had reached out to defeated primary foe Matt Bevin since they talked Tuesday night, McConnell said he had not, but said he wasn't worried about unifying the party. He noted a November 2010 exit poll that showed 91 percent of Republicans voted for Rand Paul after a divisive primary.

However, that survey polled only people who voted. Sen. Rand Paul, asked why a tea-party supporter shouldn't stay home from the polls this fall, replied, "I think the people in the tea party will come out when they realize what a disaster it would be to have Ms. Grimes." Earlier, he said, "I think the party will pull together very quickly."

Grimes is trying to get the votes of Bevin supporters with an "open letter" to them. Asked what he thought of that, McConnell said, "I hope she'll spend all of her time trying to get Republicans to vote for her."