Issues stories include one on student loan debt

Students in the "Covering the U.S. Senate Race" course in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications have continued to write stories about issues in the U.S. Senate race, and some have been published by the Kentucky Kernel, the student newspaper at UK. Tyler Spanyer's story about the issue of student loan debt is here; for stories on coal, immigration and the economy and jobs, click here.

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.

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Asked what would happen to Kynect if the law were repealed, he said, “The state exchange can continue it if they want to.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.

Afternoon roundup: A new and important TV ad from each campaign; will debate break Twitter?

As supporters gather on the KET grounds for the debate . . .

• Both major candidates have new television commercials. McConnell went first, with one about the local and national media reaction to Grimes refusing to say whether she voted for President Obama. Grimes followed with one from former Sen. Wendell Ford, making some of the most critical public comments he has ever made about McConnell, with whom he served from 1985 through 1998.
• The main speaker among the TV clips in McConnell's ad is Chuck Todd of NBC News, host of "Meet the Press," and the ad closes with his line, "I think she disqualified herself. I really do." The Washington Post's Philip Bump writes, "The good news for Grimes is that Chuck Todd is not a voter in Kentucky . . . The bad news for her campaign is that a lot more people are about to learn that this was his opinion — and her position."
• Ford says, "When I was in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans worked together. Mitch McConnell, he doesn't understand the problems. He’s just been against everything. He’s Mr. No. Alison will reach out. She won’t vote to send jobs overseas like Mitch McConnell is. Alison can work with both sides. I believe in Alison. She is the right person at the right time."
• McConnell senior adviser Josh Holmes quickly noted on Twitter that the "votes to send jobs overseas" line from an earlier Grimes ad had been dubbed "mostly false" by PolitiFact.
• The McConnell campaign objected more strongly to a 60-second ad that Politico's James Hohmann reports Grimes is running on Louisville's WMJM, "an urban adult contemporary radio station," that suggests "McConnell is trying to suppress the black vote."
• In a story titled "11 questions that will decide the Senate," one for each race, James Hohmann of Politico has this one: "Can Alison Lundergan Grimes go three more weeks without saying if she voted for Obama?"
• Pre-debate tweets: Christopher Otts (@christopherotts) of WDRB-TV says "The winner will be presented with a lump of coal." Michael Steel (@michael_steel), press secretary to House Speaker John Boehner: "Tonight's Kentucky Senate debate will break Twitter."

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."

Voters say jobs top issue by far; Libertarian's role may be decisive; a 99 percent re-election probability?

Roundups may run twice or more a day from here on out . . .

• The Bluegrass Poll found that 54 percent of registered voters believe that jobs and the economy are the top issue in the race. "Ten percent said health care, 9 percent foreign policy and 9 percent immigration," writes Mike Wynn of The Courier-Journal. "Only 8 percent stressed taxes and spending, while 3 percent said social issues and 2 percent energy." Concerns of the economy were at the top of the list for voters of all ages.
• 

  Less than a month before the election, a new web-based application has been released to help undecided voters find their true match.
  VOTR, released Monday by digital news agency Vocativ, touts similar attributes to the popular matchmaking application Tinder by allowing users to enter information about themselves and see people with similar interests.
  This application is not for dating, though. VOTR uses questions about issues such as abortion, gun control and the decriminalization of marijuana to match you with candidates in all 37 Senate races this fall.
  You then see the candidates' profile with a 'fast fact' and their positions on the issue questions you just answered.
• The Daily Independent of Ashland says in an editorial that in a tightening race, "The role of a third party candidate like Libertarian David Patterson becomes increasingly important." Noting the recent Bluegrass Poll showing Grimes with a 2-point lead over McConnell, with Patterson getting 3 percent and others 1 percent (there are three declared write-in candidates) the paper says, "In a race that is as close as this one is shaping up to be, that 4 percent can be the difference between victory and defeat for the two major-party candidates." The editorial compared the race to the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore: "Long-time consumer advocate Ralph Nader was never considered a major candidate for president in that race, but in Florida, Nader, running as an independent, received just enough votes to tip the results in Florida to Bush." The editorial noted that Kentuckians have already showed sentiment for libertarian views, by electing Rand Paul to the other Senate seat in 2010. "We repeat: David Patterson has no chance of being elected to the U.S. Senate, but in a close race, he still could play a pivotal role in determining the winner of this coveted seat." --Tyler Spanyer
• McConnell’s seat isn’t as safe as it once was, suggests a change the Battle for the Senate Race chart on RealClearPolitics.com. In what had previously been considered a state that leaned towards the Republican incumbent, Kentucky has now been reclassified as a state in which the Senate race is a tossup. The news comes just five days after the new Bluegrass Poll showed Grimes with a 2-point lead. The lead reflects a 6-point swing from the previous Bluegrass Poll in late August. Real Clear Politics includes in its analysis that until there is a confirming poll, the poll should be treated as an outlier, contrary to the recent trend to McConnell. The Chicago-based political news and polling data collective shows McConnell in front of Grimes by 4.2 percentage points based on an average of surveys collected from Aug. 28 to Oct. 2.
• Dana Milbank, a columnist for The Washington Post, reports "Big Data" modelers are predicting Senate elections with mathematical precision, and cites a forecast by the Post’s Election Lab, run by George Washington University professor John Sides that McConnell has a 99 percent chance of winning.
• With the race a short four weeks away, the direct mail pieces being sent to households are flying in. Some are from lobbying groups that can give only $10,000 to a candidate but can spend unlimited sums on independent campaigns for or against candidates. McConnell is touted in pieces from the National Association of Realtors as someone who knows "our nation's economic recovery depends on a strong housing market." The pieces say "a job is created for every two homes sold." Unlike the recent representation of McConnell by the Grimes campaign, the piece says he supports middle-class Americans and will "fight to maintain the home-mortgage-interest tax deduction that middle-class homeowners depend on." The pieces also say McConnell supports the Rural Housing Program, which Kentuckians statewide depend upon for affordable financing. --Paige Hobbs
• The Republican Party of Kentucky has mailed an advertisement criticizing Alison Lundergan Grimes for hiding her "true agenda." Shotgun-style criticisms in the ad, illustrated with suitcases and stickers, include: "She is criss-crossing Kentucky, dodging questions about the issues." The claims that if elected, Grimes will cast her vote for Harry Reid as Senate majority leader, support "Kentucky coal killing liberals," and support the rest of President Obama's agenda.  The ad claims Grimes has held secret meetings with anti-coal liberals. Fund-raisers are typically private events. It also calls a "crooked bus deal" the arrangement between Grimes and her father, Jerry Lundergan, for campaign transportation. The mailer notes says that Grimes was part of the Kentucky delegation to the 2012 Democratic National Convention that nominated President Obama, and publicly supported the president's re-election bid. --Cheyene Miller

Groups say they'll protest Romney, McConnell; Grimes starts TV ad with Bill Clinton; McConnell ad has miner

There's a lot more going on than we have students willing or able to write about it . . .

• Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, is scheduled to attend fund-raising events Thursday in for Sen. Mitch McConnell. The private fundraiser will be held at Donamire Farm on Old Frankfort Pike in Lexington. In an advisory sent to the news media, activists said they would gather to protest outside the fundraiser. According to the advisory, the protesters will be members of People for the American Way, the Kentucky State AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org and CREDO Action. The activists are expected to protest McConnell's support of the wealthy and push for a stronger voice for average citizens.
• Former president Bill Clinton is appearing in a television commercial for Alison Lundergan Grimes, who has campaigned with him twice in Kentucky and is expected to host him again. The 30-second spot shows footage of their campaign stop in Hazard. UPDATE, Oct. 2: John Harris of Politico writes of Clinton and his wife, "The Clinton Brand of 2014 is missing three key elements that vaulted Bill Clinton to power in 1992. First was new ideas. Second was an authentic populist connection. Third was the idea of generational change."
• McConnell is running an 30-second TV ad featuring Chris Sexton of Letcher County, who says he "got laid off because of the war on coal" and retrained as an emergency medical technician in a program McConnell helped fund. The McConnell campaign has not responded to a requst for documentation of Sexton's claim.
• The National Rifle Association, which started a TV ad last week calling for defeat of Grimes, has added one calling for McConnell's election, as well as a 60-second radio commercial that alleges Grimes supports the "gun control agenda" of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The only gun measure Grimes says she favors is background checks for gun purchasers at gun shows.

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.

Ad ties Grimes to Buffett, blames him for plant closure; senator hit for absences for other events

A rolling roundup as we head through the weekend . . .

• Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, a "super PAC" supporting Sen. Mitch McConnell, is starting a 60-second radio ad attacking Alison Lundergan Grimes for a fund-raising event, the invitation for which said billionaire Warren Buffett would participate by conference call. The call was canceled, apparently after Breitbart.com reported Buffett's role, and a further report noted the decision by one of the companies he owns, Fruit of the Loom, to close a plant in Jamestown with 600 employees. The ad stretches the truth, making it appear that Buffett was to be at the event and personally closed the plant, adding, "Buffett destroyed 600 families to make a buck." Grimes spokeswoman Charly Norton told PoliticoPro that Buffett "was invited by a host who has a personal connection" with him. "However, our campaign made clear that we did not think it was appropriate. We agree with Buffett that millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share in taxes. However, Alison strongly disagrees with him on the outsourcing of good Kentucky jobs — just as she disagrees with Mitch McConnell's record of voting for tax breaks that encourage companies to send jobs overseas." UPDATE, Sept. 23: KSL says the ad is running in the Lexington and Bowling Green media markets, and addition "rural radio in that region of Kentucky."
• A new Grimes ad redoubles her attack on McConnell's lack of attendance at Senate committee meetings, saying he missed some to attend a lobbyist's fundraiser and appear on two television shows and skipping a meeting on rural jobs to toast China's vice president for "China's great achievements. And the rest of the time, he created gridlock. Thirty years is long enough."
  
  The issue is similar to the one McConnell used to unseat two-term Democrat Walter "Dee" Huddleston in 1984, missing votes to make speeches for money. But that attack didn't take hold until McConnell and ad consultant Roger Ailes used the famous hound dogs to look for Huddleston. A McConnell ad replying to the first ad on this issue is still running, claiming his "voting attendance" is 99 percent. However, that's for floor votes, not committee meetings.
• Former two-term state auditor Crit Luallen is being heard in a recorded "robocall" for Grimes, which is going to more than 100,000 households, Norton said. A tagline after Luallen's 40-second message says it is paid for by the state Democratic Party but is authorized by the Grimes campaign. UPDATE, Sept. 22: The campaign says former Gov. Martha Layne Collins was heard in robocall that went to more than 200,000 voters.
• Kevin Wheatley of cn|2 has a pair of stories looking at the potential and pitfalls of the Oct. 13 KET debate for Grimes and McConnell.
• Grimes's ad showing her shooting a gun and saying "I'm not Barack Obama" was "a colossal misstep" because it gave McConnell another opportunity to air a reply ad hammering on her endorsement of the national Democratic platform, Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader said on KET's "Comment on Kentucky" Friday night. He noted that on Monday, McConnell against voted against paycheck fairness for women, one of her key issues: "Her own campaign got them off message."
• On the front page of Sunday's Herald-Leader, Youngman has a story headlined "Grimes owns small stake in company city threatened legal action against over unpaid fees, fines." Her father, Jerry Lundergan, said she owns a 1 percent interest. He paid part of the amount after the threat, and most of it the day after a Republican-oriented research firm requested records about it.
• Herald-Leader columnist Larry Dale Keeling says it's too late for Grimes to campaign on the health-reform law, and doing it now would look panicked and desperate.

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

So far, it's mainly about money and advertising . . .

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

Grimes does friendly national TV interview, out-raises McConnell in N. Ky.; Bluegrass Poll coming 8 p.m. Sat.

Heading into Labor Day weekend with some interesting developments . . .

• Joe Gerth, political writer for The Courier-Journal, reports on his Facebook page that the results of the latest Bluegrass Poll will be published at 8 p.m. Saturday.
• Alison Lundergan Grimes has raised more than twice as much money in "conservative Northern Kentucky" as Sen. Mitch McConnell, which "might indicate tepid support for McConnell among Republicans," writes Scott Wartman of The Kentucky Enquirer. "Some suggest residual resentment over tea party candidate Matt Bevin’s loss to McConnell in the primary might be in play among Republicans in Northern Kentucky."
• In a video of less than two minutes, Madeline Marshall of Politico nicely sums up the how Kentuckians' concerns about leadership figure in the race.
• Grimes appeared on MSNBC's "The Last Word" last night, and host Lawrence O'Donnell said it was "her first national television interview about her campaign." Aside from her usual talking points and her mantra of "30 years," Grimes said this about Sen. Mitch McConnell's recently revealed remarks in June to a group of big Republican funders: "These audio recordings, they go farther than any stump speech Mitch McConnell has ever offered" or votes he has cast, she said. "These tapes reveal that if re-elected, he won't even consider a vote to raise the minimum wage," extend unemployment benefits "and making college more affordable for our students" by reducing interest rates on student loans. . . . "I believe the majority of Kentuckians believe in these common-sense solutions as to how we grow the middle class and finally get Washington working."
• O'Donnell, who was a friendly interviewer, asked Grimes about McConnell's recent statement that he would not shut down the government as part of his plan, if he is majority leader, to attach policy riders to funding bills. She said voters "can no longer trust him" because he let the Farm Bill lapse and the government shut down last year. "He’s the one who is so out of step with the values we have in the commonwealth of Kentucky, he’s willing to choose millionaires and billionaires over the hardworking people here in this state," she said.
• Asked to cite her main disagreements with President Obama, she said of McConnell "wants to run this race against anyone but me," and "The gridlock, the mess that he’s created in Washington, well, it’s why the president is wrongly ruling by executive order. … The people of Kentucky, they know that I’m a strong, independent Kentucky woman who will do what’s right for the people of this state. You seek to have the best interest of this state at heart, and I’ll work with you, but you seek to strike at the good jobs that we have here in Kentucky and you will find no stronger opponent." McConnell's campaign noted in a press release that she didn't name an issue on which she disagrees. For a nearly complete transcript of the interview, click here.

In new TV ads, Grimes touts experience, McConnell asks why she backed Obama after he targeted coal

Alison Lundergan Grimes started a new television commercial today, the first in which she mentions her experience as secretary of state, a post to which she was elected in 2011. She uses that as evidence that she can help produce jobs, which she has tried to make the centerpiece of her campaign. The office's main duties are keeping business records and overseeing elections; an ad for Sen. Mitch McConnell has questioned her lack of experience.

In the 30-second spot, in which she speaks throughout, Grimes notes "landmark legislation" she worked to pass "to guarantee that military votes could be counted, bringing Republicans and Democrats together." The ad does not mention that major provision she proposed, to allow electronic absentee voting by service members, was rejected by the Republican-controlled state Senate.

She also mentions her work as "a volunteer lawyer for victims of domestic violence. I know how to fight for those with no voice, and win." Her closing has the ad's only attack line: "Washington's broken, and Kentucky needs a new senator."

Later today, Sen. Mitch McConnell started a new ad, using some of the same themes as earlier ads and those from the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, a group funded by unknown donors. It notes news-media criticism of some of Grimes's earlier ads, implying that they all fell short of the truth; and asks "Why was she a delegate for Obama's re-election after he vowed to bankrupt Kentucky's coal industry?" He did not make such a specific pledge, but said he wanted to block construction of new coal-fired power plants by imposing heavy fees on their greenhouse-gas emissions. The ad closes with what has been McConnell's campaign motto since primary-election night: "Obama needs Grimes, but Kentucky needs Mitch McConnell." Another McConnell ad that started this week features sound clips from a McConnell stump speech about coal.

Magazine's audio, transcript: McConnell disses wage-floor boost, extra help for student debtors, jobless

A recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell, apparently done in secret, has him disparaging minimum-wage increases, extended unemployment benefits and relief for student-loan debtors, according to The Nation, a liberal magazine that published the barely audible recording and a transcript today.

After discussing his recently revealed plan to attach policy riders to funding bills, to force President Obama to veto them and/or negotiate, McConnell said, according to the transcript:

"We’re not going to be debating all these gosh-darn proposals. That’s all we do in the Senate, is vote on things like raising the minimum wage (inaudible) – cost the country 500,000 new jobs; extending unemployment – that’s a great message for retirees; uh, the student loan package the other day, that’s just going to make things worse, uh. These people believe in all the wrong things."

McConnell was answering questions after speaking June 15 at a California "donor summit" held by Charles and David Koch, brothers who have been two of the leading financiers of conservative causes and Republican campaigns in recent years.

"The main thrust of McConnell’s remarks to the Koch conference were about his pet issue, campaign finance, which he regards as a matter of free speech," Lauren Windsor reports for The Nation. According to the magazine, he said "the worst day of my political life" was when President George W. Bush signed the McCain-Feingold law, "the bill that banned soft money and unlimited donations to party committees," Windsor writes.

"McConnell promised his party’s rich backers that he stands with them, no matter the cost to Kentuckians and this nation," the Alison Lundergan Grimes campaign said in a press release.

The McConnell campaign didn't dispute the transcript, but cast the senator's remarks as no different from his stump speeches and a forthright defense of the coal industry that it said Grimes has been too timid to defend: "Earlier this summer Grimes failed to utter a word of support after promising Kentuckians she would defend Kentucky coal at a Harry Reid fundraiser and lord [sic] knows what she said to Tom Steyer and anti-coal billionaires when she attended their conference in Chicago."

New York magazine and New York Times publish long stories about the race and McConnell

Two major examinations of the race were published online today. They are worth your time, but we only have time and space for a couple of teasers:

• Jonathan Martin, the national political correspondent for The New York Times, has a long story about Sen. Mitch McConnell in the newspaper's magazine, which will be in the print edition Sunday. His interview with Grimes doesn't appear until the last two paragraphs:

“I think that he is continuing to show just how out of touch he is with the state — the days of being able to bully your way and to buy your way back to Washington, D.C., are over,” she said, sticking to her talking points, as she did on most every question I posed. When I asked Grimes if she thought McConnell’s insider-outsider tactic was working — despite the fact that he had been in the Senate for 30 years and she was a genuine newcomer — she replied, “That is a campaign tactic that he is trying to use, to claim somehow that he’s the victim.” In the end, however, it seemed as though McConnell had found a way to make the race about Obama rather than himself. Somehow, he had yet again become the outsider. Maybe the guy still had it.

The pivot point in the long story by Chris Smith of New York magazine is an interview with Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:

Is this race about Mitch McConnell and national ideology and national partisanship, or is it about Kentucky?” Cecil says. “In the polling, voters side with Democrats on pocketbook issues. We have to make sure they go into the voting booth with that being the first thing on their minds. If they do, I think Alison will win. McConnell only wants to talk about Barack Obama. This is going to be a two-point race in either direction. And it’s going to be close all the way to the end.”

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 agrees to KET debate (no Patterson), gets help from NRA mailer; editor defends jobs quote

Finally, a real debate has been scheduled; and there's more news and commentary:

• Sen. Mitch McConnell has accepted KET’s invitation to debate Alison Lundergan Grimes Oct. 13, three weeks before the election and about six weeks after Labor Day, when he wanted to end a series of debates he proposed. "Host Bill Goodman will moderate the debate and ask questions, and viewers will be allowed to call in with their questions, said Tim Bischoff, a spokesman for the state's educational television network," reports Joseph Gerth of The Courier-Journal. "Josh Holmes, an adviser to McConnell, said that the campaign is in discussions about other potential debates but has nothing to announce at this time." Grimes campaign manager Jonathan Hurst said their campaign hopes for "several more debates."
• Bischoff said Libertarian Party candidate David Patterson did not meet the criteria that the network said must be met by Aug. 15, including acceptance of at least $100,000 in campaign contributions and getting at least 10 percent support in an independent, professional poll.
• The National Rifle Association has sent a mailer to Kentucky residents that says,"McConnell will stop the Obama/Bloomberg Gun Control agenda . . . the biggest threat to your Second Amendment rights in Obama's final years in office. ' of President Obama and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg." Kevin Willis of WKYU-FM in Bowling Green notes that the mailer was sent shortly after it was revealed that McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, is on the board of a charity created by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
  
  
• McConnell "might have kept in mind his wife’s membership on boards of a couple of organizations that aren’t enamored of coal before he based his case against Alison Lundergan Grimes on her association with some who also don’t love coal," writes Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News Service. McConnell now must "defend his own association through his wife’s involvement on the boards of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Wells Fargo." Meanwhile, Grimes's allies in the legislature "squirm as the Kentucky Coal Association and its president, Bill Bissett, come to McConnell’s defense time and again. After years of kowtowing to King Coal, no matter how outrageous some of its excesses, they clearly have no leverage over KCA, which supposedly doesn’t endorse candidates — but clearly supports McConnell over Grimes."
• McConnell introduced legislation that addresses infants born on opiates and maternal addiction, a problem that is increasing in Kentucky. He said in a press release that the bill would "help identify and disseminate recommendations for preventing and treating maternal addiction so that we can reduce the number of infants born dependent on opiates and other drugs," and "encourage the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with states to improve the availability and quality of research data to help them respond more effectively to this public health epidemic."
• Edmund Shelby, editor of The Beattyville Enterprise, wrote a commentary for The Courier-Journal standing by his article in April on McConnell's statements about jobs, a prime focus of attacks by the Grimes and her allies. Shelby had asked McConnell basic questions in a brief interview before a luncheon. When Shelby asked the senator what he was going to do to bring jobs to Lee County, an off-guard McConnell said, "Economic development is a Frankfort issue. That is not my job. It is the primary responsibility of the state Commerce Cabinet." McConnell added that he was fighting the Obama administration's proposed restrictions on coal, and Shelby reported that, too. McConnell claimed Shelby quoted him out of context, but Shelby said the context was very clear: "I firmly believe that Sen. McConnell committed the cardinal sin of all career politicians: He gave an honest answer to a journalist’s question."

McConnell calls Grimes ad an attack on Chao; could set up attack on Lundergan; camps talk debates

The weekend conversation is mainly about Alison Lundergan Grimes's new TV spot:

• Grimes "has set aside her folksy, light-hearted television ad series 'Questions for Mitch' in favor of a traditional attack ad, as recent polls show her losing ground in a tight race with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell," writes Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "McConnell's campaign labeled the ad an attack on the senator's wife, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, although the ad never makes a direct reference to Chao. Because the ad mentions McConnell's personal wealth, the majority of which was inherited from Chao's family, the McConnell campaign countered that it represented another attack on Chao." The ad says McConnell has become a multi-millionaire in public office; Youngman notes, "The bulk of McConnell's wealth comes from a gift Chao's father, an immigrant-turned-shipping-magnate, gave the couple and an inheritance she received after her mother died in 2007."
• The ad "does try to infer that there might be some misbehavior or some misuse of his position," Kentucky Gazette Editor Laura Cullen Glasscock said on KET's "Comment on Kentucky" Friday night. (She meant "imply," not "infer," which is what viewers may do.) Panelist Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News said, "The underlying thing they want to get across is that he has become a creature of Washington and has lost touch with hard-working, blue-collar Kentuckians." Glasscock added, " . . . that he's not one of us, doesn't represent the citizen any more."
• Ellis said the McConnell campaign's response is another indication that it may make an issue of Grimes's father, former state Democratic chair Jerry Lundergan. He noted that McConnell told Lana Bellamy of CHNI's Ashland Daily Independent, "If Jerry Lundergan were my father I'd be careful about bringing family into this." Noting Lundergan's 1987 conviction, for doing business with the state while a state legislator, which was overturned because it was later ruled a misdemeanor and the statute of limitations had run, Ellis said, "I think there's a very good chance were going to see that, then Grimes could respond at Chao." WHAS-TV's Joe Arnold noted that such attacks could be done by allied groups that are legally required to act independently of the campaigns.
• Also on "Comment," Arnold reported that the McConnell and Grimes campaigns have had their first "face to face meeting" to discuss debates. "Comment" airs again at 12:30 p.m. ET Sunday, and Monday on KET KY at 8 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. ET.

• 
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/15/3381856/alison-lundergan-grimes-shifts.html?sp=/99/322/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy

Roundup: Grimes ad says McConnell laughed about the jobless; he meets w/evangelicals; race's ranking slips

So what was he laughing about? Listen for yourself  . . .

• Alison Lundergan Grimes launched her toughest attack ad of the race today, a 30-second spot that says Sen. Mitch McConnell became a multi-millionaire in public office but voted repeatedly against raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits, and for tax breaks that support sending jobs overseas, "and when asked about it, just laughs." The punch line refers to the end of a session McConnell had in January with conservative radio talker Lars Larson, who did not favor McConnell's proposal to extend unemployment benefits in return for a year's delay in the individual health insurance mandate. They sparred about the topic for most of the eight-minute interview, and McConnell said Larson had some good points. As Larson bid goodbye, he chuckled and said he hoped McConnell would vote no (against his own plan). That brought a laugh from McConnell; during it, Larson added, "at least for the long-term unemployed," and McConnell replied, "Yeah," in a tone that could be interpreted as sarcastic. The Grimes campaign raised the issue in January, and the Lexington Herald-Leader did a story with the audio from the show.
• Grimes slipped a bit in the latest poll, and the race slipped again in the monthly rankings of Senate races by "The Fix" column in The Washington Post, down to No. 9 from No. 7, with No. 1 being the race most likely to decide control of the Senate: "The Democrats' best shot at a pickup might be in the Bluegrass State, where polling continues to show one of the tightest races in the country," but various models make McConnell a strong favorite – "in large part because the state is so red. FiveThirtyEight says McConnell has an 80 percent shot to win, and the Post pegs his chances even better than that." UPDATE, Aug. 16: "The Upshot" of The New York Times gives Grimes only a 12 percent chance of winning.
• On Thursday, McConnell answered questions from a panel of evangelical pastors, where he discussed "abortion, gay marriage and the persecution of Christians in Iraq . . . a rare discussion of social and religious issues for the Republican," report Adam Beam and Bruce Schreiner of The Associated Press. Grimes was absent. "Organizers invited her to the forum in Bowling Green — and two subsequent forums in Louisville and Somerset later this month — but the Grimes campaign has not said whether she would attend," the reporters write, noting that the candidates rarely discuss their faith.
• Schreiner also writes that Grimes said "McConnell has some explaining for his wife's role as a board member of an organization that has spent $50 million to close coal-fired power plants." Grimes has yet to say if she thinks former labor secretary Elaine Chao "should resign from the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies, a charity founded by former New York City mayor and media mogul Michael Bloomberg," Schreiner writes. Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear chimed in at the same state-fair event that Grimes attended and said, "Arguing that you're the champion of coal and then being together with groups ... that are anti-coal doesn't seem very consistent to me." McConnell said his wife will not resign from the board.

Roundup: McConnell's side nears 2-1 edge in TV outlay as poll shows him leading by 4 pts.; Patterson gets 7%

The biggest wire service takes a look at the race, and there's a new poll . . .

• Sen. Mitch McConnell has been using President Obama's obvious unpopularity in Kentucky to his advantage, and he and his allies outspent Grimes on television "by a nearly 2-1 margin," reports David Espo of The Associated Press in an overview of the race. He datelined it Harlan, one of the stops on McConnell's coal tour last week, in which the senator sought "the support of coal miners and their neighbors in Eastern Kentucky, a region he split with his Democratic challenger in most recent race in 2008. That year, Obama got only 41 percent of the vote statewide, a number that dropped to 38 percent in 2012," Espo notes. "McConnell rarely mentions Grimes by name, preferring instead to campaign against Obama and 'those people,' an undefined group he says "are not the kind of people we have here in Kentucky."
• Alison Lundergan Grimes released a new web ad today that emphasizes her focus on jobs. The ad includes footage from her rallies last week with President Bill Clinton in Hazard and Lexington and shows the enthusiasm of crowds and their embrace of the issue, especially in Eastern Kentucky. Clinton picks up the cudgel that McConnell gave Grimes: "One candidate says it’s ‘not my job’ to create jobs. The other candidate, from the get-go of her campaign, put out a Kentucky Jobs Action Plan. And it’s good, I’ve read it."
  
• Libertarian David Patterson's filing for the Nov. 4 ballot could hurt McConnell by attracting Republicans who voted for Matt Bevin in the May primary, Michael Patrick Leahy writes for Breitbart.com, a popular, conservative website: "It's conceivable that Grimes could ride pro-Bevin defectors to Patterson to victory. . . . But for the Libertarian candidate to receive 75,000 to 125,000 votes from Tea Party supporters will require more than a mere endorsement from the UKTP," the United Kentucky Tea Party, an informal coalition that backed Bevin in May. "Such a result will require a boots-on-the-ground door-knocking effort, and despite the lingering hostility among Kentucky Tea Party members towards McConnell, that level of organization has not yet been reached." Polls indicate that Patterson takes votes about equally from McConnell and Grimes.
• McConnell leads Grimes 44 percent to 40 percent among self-described likely voters, with 9 percent undecided and 7 percent for Patterson, in an automated telephone poll taken Aug. 7-10 by Public Policy Polling, a North Carolina firm that usually works for Democrats but averages only a slight Democratic lean in its results. The poll showed Grimes's name recognition at an all-time high, but skewing negative, with her job approval at 41 percent and disapproval at 45 percent. That may reflect McConnell's edge in TV advertising, which has attacked Grimes and linked her with Obama, whose job rating in the poll was 32 percent approve, 63 percent disapprove. However, the race remains up for grabs because McConnell's job rating is 37 percent approve and 54 percent disapprove; 11 percent of women, a key group for Grimes, are undecided; and the poll's error margin was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. For the PPP release, click here; for the poll results, go here.

Roundup: Post analyst says GOP likelier to gain Senate, but McConnell race Dems' top pickup chance

Rounding up the weekend coverage and commentary, and more recent items:

• Mitch McConnell's main positive argument for his re-election, that he would become Senate majority leader, gets a boost from Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post, who writes that a Republican takeover is now "a better than 50-50 proposition." But he also writes that the Kentucky race, not an open seat in Georgia, "seems the better opportunity" for Democrats to take a Republican seat, given "McConnell’s middling poll numbers and the able campaign being run by state Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Polling gives McConnell a slight edge, but even his most ardent supporters acknowledge that his vote ceiling is somewhere between 51 and 52 percent." But he said a McConnell loss "looks possible — but not probable — at the moment."
• In his fortnightly column in The Courier-Journal, Al Cross (publisher of this blog) analyzes the week that began with the Fancy Farm Picnic, saying "Grimes needed a win at Fancy Farm, and she got it;" looks at her ad on women's issues and McConnell's response ad, featuring his wife, Elaine Chao; notes stories that could turn the race more personal; and ends with the candidates' battle for the East Kentucky Coal Field, where the percentage of uninsured people has dropped to record low levels but "Grimes still seems scared to come close to anything associated with Obama, much less Obamacare."
• The candidates' Eastern Kentucky crowds looked identical but had sharply divergent views, writes Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News Service: Grimes supporters "see an American society built by the middle class, a middle class they believe should always be expanding. But they see that dream faltering as the rules now seem stacked against them by rich and malevolent powers which get richer and richer at the expense of hard-working families whose incomes are shrinking. They see the coal economy by which many escaped poverty, and many more hope to, crumbling beneath them and their region." McConnell backers "are just as alarmed by the demise of coal in Eastern Kentucky. . . . To these folks, outside forces, alien, socialist forces, people who don’t like us, are malevolently working to destroy our way of life."
• Catching up with the weekly papers: The Record of Leitchfield reported last week that Grimes, on her way to Fancy Farm, stopped at Rough River Dam State Resort Park and got a little rough, telling supporters she was wearing "butt-kicking boots—the boots I’m gonna wear to kick Mitch McConnell’s butt out of his Senate seat."