The man who made himself the third major player in the race wouldn't mind if candidates had more control

By Cheyene Miller
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Scott Jennings, a man who has benefited greatly from the new era of campaign finance, says he wouldn’t mind going back to the old system, when candidates had the power.

Scott Jennings (Courier-Journal photo)

The former political director for Sen. Mitch McConnell ran two organizations that aired one of every seven television commercials in McConnell’s recent race with Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, delivering a one-two combination that made him the third major player.

But he told a University of Kentucky journalism class the covered the race that he would prefer a system where candidates had more control over paid messages than they do now.

“The system, as it has evolved since I first started in politics, now offers outside groups the opportunity to speak as much or more than candidates in some cases because of the contribution limits placed on campaigns,” Jennings elaborated in an email after speaking to the class.

“The current system almost guarantees that a significant amount of money will be spent in major elections on behalf of candidates who cannot legally control the message generated by that spending. I think democracy is more vibrant when people are free to speak in elections; I just think it's kind of silly that candidates themselves – the people brave enough to put their names on the ballot – can’t influence some of the messages that will ultimately be delivered to their benefit.”

Jennings’s two groups, the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition and Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, spent at least $20 million in the Senate race, more than Grimes reported raising. 

He pointed out that this was the first campaign for a federal office in Kentucky since the 2010 Citizens United ruling, which gave corporations and unions the right to make unlimited campaign contributions.

He said the 2014 Senate race was comparable to the 2012 presidential election, in which each candidate had both a campaign committee and an affiliated “super PAC,” an independent political action committee that cannot legally coordinate with the campaign, but can raise and spend unlimited sums of money from both individuals and corporations on behalf of that candidate.

The exact amount Jennings spent is unknown because the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition is a social welfare organization, which under 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code cannot spend its money primarily on politics.  

Jennings said most of  the KOC’s money was spent on "issue ads," which don't call for viewers to vote one way or another and thus aren’t considered political.

As a 501(c)(4) organization, KOC does not have to reveal its donors, but Jennings said the vast majority of its money came from out of state. That was also the case with Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, which is registered under Section 527 of the tax code and does reveal its contributors.

The two biggest players for Grimes were the Senate Majority PAC, affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which spent a combined total of $7,830,234, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ compilation (at www.opensecrets.org) of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.  Jennings noted that out-of-state political operatives ran both committees.

"Combined, they got to roughly what Kentuckians for Strong Leadership spent,” Jennings said. According to opensecrets.org, KSL spent $6,409,617 on the race.

Grimes benefited from $1.34 million in labor-union spending, but it was fragmented, which Jennings said is one of the problems with outside spending. "It can become extremely ineffective," he said.

Jennings said that nationally, Democrats were more successful raising super PAC money. However, Jennings successfully played the role of third major player in the Kentucky race, Grimes campaign manager Jonathan Hurst told the journalism class this week.

Hurst said that while McConnell was focusing on defeating Tea Party-backed Matt Bevin in the Republican primary, the Grimes campaign had to deal with attacks from Jennings and his organizations, who were already pounding the idea of Grimes being President Obama’s Kentucky candidate. 

In Jennings, McConnell “had an ally, a third-party ally that could then come in and deal with us as he dealt with Bevin,” Hurst said. “It played a major part in the race.”

Jennings was so influential in the race that the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition became the focus of an Oct. 29 report from the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. It said “No other group has had a larger footprint in Kentucky's U.S. Senate race.”

Jennings said the campaign-finance landscape has changed greatly since his first campaign in 2000, and “I'm sure legislators and courts will wrestle with these questions again in the near future. For political operatives like me, you just play by the rules as they exist in any particular election.”

He added, “I strongly support the right of anyone to donate to political candidates and organizations. And I think it's a good thing when we have a free flowing marketplace of ideas.”

Grimes tears up as she talks about billionaires; Public Policy Polling has her 8 points behind

A Sunday evening roundup that will go into Monday . . .

• Alison Lundergan Grimes teared up today as she urged supporters to get out the vote to overcome the influence of "millionaires and billionaires," who presumably have financed the political committees that have put her at a decided financial disadvantage. “You, you are people who can’t be bought,” she told "the largely union crowd here, her voice breaking slightly and her eyes welling with tears," Jay Newton-Small reports from Henderson for Time magazine. The Grimes campaign circulated the story in a press release that said "Alison is leaving it all on the field."
• Grimes plans to stop Monday in Pikeville, Somerset, Bowling Green, Paducah, Ownesboro, Newport, Louisville (at the Center for African American Heritage), her birthplace of Maysville and her home town of Lexington. Sen. Mitch McConnell also has a fly-around to Louisville, Northern Kentucky, Lexington, Hazard, Paducah, Owensboro and Bowling Green.
• A survey taken Oct. 30 through Nov. 1 by Public Policy Polling showed McConnell with 50 percent, Grimes with 42 percent and 3 percent each for undecided and Libertarian David Patterson. The poll's error margin was plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
• McConnell has bought more than $1 million worth of TV commercials "with four different closing-argument commercials — all with targeted messages aimed at appealing to the tastes of viewers in those individual Kentucky media markets," Manu Raju reports for Politico. The ads in Western Kentucky tout McConnell’s work for cancer screening treatments at an industrial plant in Paducah and helping with fishing rights, while the spots in Eastern Kentucky vow to win the “war on coal” and help displaced coal miners. In the Lexington and Cincinnati markets, the ads highlight McConnell helping a woman locate her abducted daughter. And in Louisville, McConnell promotes his efforts to help an aluminum plant that was shedding jobs while also saying he’s “inspired” by an activist helping women who were victims of violent crimes."
• If McConnell wins by a strong margin, he could have coattails that would turn the Kentucky House Republican for the first time since 1921 and perhaps guarantee passage of a "right to work" law that bans union contracts that require workers to pay dues or fees, Mike Elk reports for Politico. Several other Republican measures would be in play, University of Kentucky journalism professor Al Cross noted in his column last Sunday.

Poll gives McConnell clear lead; Republicans have outspent Democrats on TV by margin of nearly 3 to 2

Sunday is not a day of rest for campaigners and dedicated observers:

• A Marist College poll taken for NBC News Friday, Oct. 31 is the first reliable, independent poll to give Sen. Mitch McConnell 50 percent of the vote and a lead outside the margin of error. The survey gave Alison Lundergan Grimes 41 percent and Libertarian David Patterson 5 percent, with 3 percent of self-described likely voters undecided. The poll's initial question, about President Obama's job approval, may have skewed the results slightly; Obama's rating was 32 percent approval and 60 percent disapproval. McConnell's favorable-unfavorable was 44-49; Grimes's was 42-47. The poll's error margin was plus or minus 4.2 percent.
• "A senior party official" called McConnell "on Saturday at his Louisville home and, after running through voting projections, told Mr. McConnell that he would be the next majority leader. Mr. McConnell’s initial reaction was only a long pause," reports Jonathan Martin of The New York Times. McConnell has dreamed of being majority leader for a very long time, perhaps virtually all his adult life.
• Republicans have bought about 29 broadcast TV ads in the Senate race for every 20 commercials run by Democrats, according to near-final calculations by the Center for Public Integrity, reported by Adam Beam of The Associated Press. "Altogether, Kentucky's Senate candidates and interested parties have spent more than $33 million on TV ads, and that's a low estimate. It does not include the money spent on polling to come up with the ads or production costs to make the ads. And it does not include ads on local cable. McConnell's campaign has outspent Grimes' campaign by about $2 million. But the big advantage for McConnell comes from two super PACs, the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition and Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, that have spent a combined $8.2 million on ads for McConnell. Grimes' biggest source of outside help came from the $2.4 million worth of ads from the Senate Majority PAC," overseen by Democratic Leader Harry Reid. For the latest data from the Center for Responsive Politics, click here.
• Here's an image of the controversial mailer that McConnell and the Republican Party of Kentucky sent to voters in Eastern Kentucky:
  
  
  Inside, the mailer says, "Dear Citizen: This document serves as a notification to you, as a resident of Kentucky and a registered voter in the aforementioned commonwealth, of fraudulent information that is being deliberately spread to voters in your area. The information that has been red-flagged as 100% false is being purposely spread by the campaign of the federal candidate named below: Alison Lundergan Grimes. With the campaign for United States Senate nearly complete, Alison Lundergan Grimes has chosen to launch an advertising campaign that independent sources prove is filled with blatant lies intended solely to deceive Kentucky voters." Grimes has filed suit seeking an injunction to stop use of the mailers. UPDATE, Jan. 26: In the Campaigns & Elections magazine contest, the piece "won five awards, including 'best direct mail piece for 2014,' Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "The mail piece, produced by the Lukens Company, also won for 'best direct mail piece for Republican statewide candidate,' 'best mail piece for a bare-knuckled street fight victory,' 'toughest direct mail piece' and 'most daring and successful tactic'."
• Here's the inside of a mailer that the Kentucky Democratic Party has sent African Americans, promoting protests from the McConnell campaign:
  
  
Grimes's campaign said it would seek judicial action against the mailers.

As Grimes' odds lengthen, Hillary Clinton rallies supporters; reporters look at spending and lies

Hillary Clinton urged a crowd of 1,200 at Transylvania University in Lexington Saturday to work hard at getting out the vote for Alison Lundergan Grimes, who "will need every bit of that enthusiasm on Tuesday to have a chance at pulling the upset of the political cycle," Sam Youngman writes for the Lexington Herald-Leader, noting political handicapper Stuart Rothenberg's change in rating for the race, to "Republican favored" from "lean Republican." (Herald-Leader photo)

Earlier in the day, Clinton and Grimes rallied at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights. "This redundantly named city is a wonderfully symbolic place for the starting point of a campaign's final weekend," The Courier-Journal's James R. Carroll writes. If Grimes upsets Sen. Mitch McConnell, "She would be launched into the political heights in Kentucky and in Washington."

On the other hand, "McConnell's re-election, all by itself, would cement his place as one of Kentucky's most important political figures and extend his record as the commonwealth's longest-serving senator," Carroll writes. "McConnell at the very least would remain the leader of the Senate Republicans, a position that has given the Kentuckian the power to frustrate and derail many Obama initiatives. But if the Republicans do well in other states on Tuesday, McConnell would occupy that highest spot on Highland Heights, as Senate majority leader."

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seems to think McConnell is going to win re-election, Niels Lesniewski reports for Roll Call. He told Iowa liberal activists in a phone call that “What [Republican nominee] Joni Ernst would mean, coming to the United States Senate, is that Mitch McConnell would be the leader of the Senate, someone who agrees with her on virtually everything,” Reid said.

In his Sunday column, The C-J's Joseph Gerth says $80 million will be spent on the race. "With all due respect to my friends in the television industry whose employers saw this election as a huge cash cow, it's a ridiculous amount of money that could have been spent in much more noble pursuits than making voters think the worst of one's opponent," Gerth writes, giving some examples, ending with: "It's $50 for every vote that is expected to be cast next week." He also says, "The Center for Responsive Politics reckons that $78 million had been spent by the middle of last week and that doesn't count the millions of dollars in 'issue' ads that are intended to influence the race but aren't counted in the total because they don't expressly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate. It will be among the most expensive U.S. Senate races in U.S. history and it will happen in one of the nation's poorest states."

John Cheves of the Herald-Leader picks "the seven biggest whoppers" of the race: McConnell's "Kynect is just a website;" Grimes's repeated claim that McConnell got rich from office; the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition's claim that Grimes supported "Obama's amnesty plan;" both sides' claims that the other would wreck Medicare; and both sides' claim that the other hates coal.

Carroll, Gerth and C-J colleague Tom Loftus report on the day's events and look forward to the end of the race: "Grimes will keep up with the blistering pace with a total of 23 stops in 21 counties between Saturday and Monday. The 72-year-old McConnell, on the other hand, appears to be coasting, with only 11 stops in 10 counties over that span — with most of those stops coming Monday when Sen. Rand Paul joins him on the trail."

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."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren returns; Grimes' ad on Paducah plant faulted; McConnell mum on Social Security plan

The final week begins . . .

Courier-Journal photo by John Sommers

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined Alison Lundergan Grimes for a rally tonight in Louisville, her second visit to the city for at attack on Sen. Mitch McConnell. "They repeatedly slammed McConnell for catering to the wealthy while opposing increasing the minimum wage, for opposing refinancing student loans and for opposing equal pay for equal work," Sebastian Kitchen reports for The Courier-Journal, adding that "a lively crowd of more than 400" was on hand. McConnell's campaign said Warren is wrong for Kentucky, calling Grimes' ties to the Massachusetts senator a "stark reminder of her loyalty to Obama." The campaign said Warren is a supporter of the war on coal, referring to her support of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulations to limit carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants.
• MSNBC reporter Irin Carmon reports enthusiasm for Grimes at an event in Calhoun, where "Grimes spelled it out: ‘I don’t have to pay you to be here.’" Carmon noted that "Grimes needs their enthusiasm, and their turnout muscle, if she is to upend the conventional wisdom that McConnell will hold on, and with him Republican control of the Senate." Carmon reports a crowd of of about 100 greeted Grimes in the town of 763.
• "A new TV ad by Alison Lundergan Grimes that attempts to paint McConnell as uncaring is disingenuous,” The Paducah Sun said in an editorial. “The ad, which began running in the Paducah market a week ago, claims McConnell did little to help workers” at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which enriched uranium for decades. The Sun says no one has worked harder than McConnell to help sick workers and keep the plant open. "Since 1999, Sen. McConnell has secured more than $1 billion in funding for the PGDP and its workers," the editorial said. The Sun goes on to cite numerous occasions of McConnell aiding the plant.
• The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee started a TV ad in which retired Louisville teacher Estelle Bayer says McConnell "voted himself six pay raises and made himself a millionaire, and he opposes raising the minimum wage?"
• The Grimes campaign announced today that Grimes has campaigned in all 120 Kentucky counties, wrapping up with Caldwell (Princeton). We were wondering why she went to several Republican strongholds in the last week or so.
• McConnell asked TV stations to stop running the Senate Majority PAC ad attacking him on Social Security, contesting its suggestions that he profited from insider trading. WDRB-TV in Louisville, which generally has a conservative editorial policy, pulled the ad but reinstated it, saying it found the assertions to be factual, and other stations are still running it, liberal columnist Greg Sargent reports for The Washington Post. "The dust-up shows that Democrats are pushing hard to make Social Security privatization a sleeper issue," Sargent writes. He notes McConnell senior adviser Josh Holmes told Brian Beutler of The New Republic, "I don't think anyone is interested in reviving the '05 debate," in which McConnell favored privatization.
• Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News Service reported after a McConnell rally in Campbellsville, "McConnell evaded reporters’ questions about whether as majority leader he’d support legislation to 'privatize' or change Social Security." On Thursday, "McConnell specifically touted his effort to push President George W. Bush’s plans to reform Social Security in 2005, which would have set up private accounts for retirees,” Joe Sonka of Insider Louisville reported then, adding: "Insider Louisville asked McConnell after the event if he would make a push for such reforms to Social Security if he was elected Senate majority leader and could set the agenda, but he declined to reveal if he would do so."
• Ellis notes that Grimes says McConnell "supports tax breaks that encourage businesses to ship jobs overseas, but that message won’t get much support at Campbellsville Apparel, a textile company which supplies materials for federal government contracts and which employs a lot of folks who once worked at Fruit of the Loom — a company which moved jobs from Kentucky to Mexico." McConnell intervened to help the firm keep a federal contract, local officials said.

Bill Moyers suggests McConnell's campaign and his allies are illegally coordinating their election activities

In the last week, roundups will change often, so keep us bookmarked . . .

• In an essay titled "How to buy an election," liberal journalist and commentator Bill Moyers questions whether Sen. Mitch McConnell has kept proper legal distance from "a constellation of outside groups" that are attacking Alison Lundergan Grimes in all sorts of advertising. He notes the senator's ties to several people who are playing key roles in those "supposedly independent" campaigns, like the one of the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, which has spent $12.4 million attacking Grimes, Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal reports. "Often the sharing of consultants and ad makers means that any 'fire wall' is merely symbolic," Moyers writes. "But there have been no consequences for these potential violations of federal law, because there’s been no enforcement of the law, thanks to partisan gridlock at the Federal Election Commission," fostered partly by McConnell.
• Both candidates have started the traditional "closer" ads, in which they speak to the camera with a gentler message than most of their spots have delivered. McConnell has some real fun, ending with a bunch of bloodhounds to subtly recall the ads he rode to an upset victory over Democratic Sen. Walter D. Huddleston in 1984. It ends with him laughing, a rarity in an ad.
  

For an analysis of the Grimes ad, from Susan Davis of USA Today, click here.

Joe Arnold of Louisville's WHAS-TV reports on get-out-the-vote operations in both parties that may be the largest ever in Kentucky.

"Although they get little attention from candidates, white evangelical Christian voters are likely to be fundamental to any Republican victories in the key Senate races, especially in the South," Alistair Bell writes for Reuters. "Polling data shows evangelicals are more enthusiastic than the general population about the midterms," which Bell says "is striking given that Republican candidates have largely avoided evangelicals' pet topics like opposition to abortion and gay marriage for fear of alienating moderate voters." Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition says his group is doing its "most muscular" turnout operation ever. That includes voter guides like the one at the bottom of this blog post. CatholicVote.org, another pro-McConnell group, also has a guide.

The outcome of the race depends on whether voters have less trust in Congress or in President Obama, writes Michael Memoli of the Los Angeles Times.

Ever since Libertarian David Patterson got his name on the ballot, observers have wondered which major candidate he would hurt. Bill Hayes writes on his blog, The Rural Democrat, that it is likely Grimes, if Patterson gets 4 to 5 percent of the vote, because recent polling has shown him gaining support among self-defined independent voters and her losing support among that group.

McConnell ad hits Grimes on restaurant's pay; Reid's PAC hints McConnell was an inside trader

A rolling roundup as we head into the race's next-to-last weekend:

• Based on a report by CNN, Sen. Mitch McConnell has started a television commercial accusing Grimes of hypocrisy because she advocates raising the minimum wage while acting as a lawyer for her family's restaurant, which pays its workers $2.13 and hour. That is the minimum wage for tipped workers, a point the report made but the commercial does not use.
• The Grimes campaign pointed out that one of the young women in an ad McConnell started this week is a University of Louisville student who is registered to vote in Pennsylvania, while the McConnell campaign "said a new ad from Grimes supporters falsely accused the Senate minority leader of using his office to improve his personal investments during the 2008 financial crisis," Adam Beam reports for The Associated Press. The latter ad comes from Senate Majority PAC, overseen by McConnell's chief adversary in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "The ad is based on a 2012 story from The Washington Post that detailed how 34 members of Congress updated their investments during the financial crisis after having phone calls or meetings with Treasury officials," Beam writes. "But the story quotes McConnell's financial adviser saying the four trades came at the suggestion of Merrill Lynch, not McConnell. The story said McConnell never spoke to his financial adviser and does not own individual stocks to avoid the appearance of a conflict."
• In an entertaining video report for Fusion, Alicia Menendez says the ads have been making more news than the candidates themselves.
• WAVE-TV in Louisville is asking both campaigns to stop using video clips from its news programs in their commercials. News Director Bill Shory" said the use of his station’s reports in campaign ads have led his viewers to believe WAVE is endorsing one candidate over another," Kevin Eck of MediaBistro reports. In an open letter on the station’s website, Shory said he has received complaints about the candidates' ads and sent letters to McConnell and Grimes "asking them to stop using clips from WAVE in their campaign ads," and saying the station would present "all facts, statements, and coverage truthfully and in the proper context."
• Eleanor Clift writes for The Daily Beast that in a new video, McConnell "brags about lowering the boom on sexual harasser Bob Packwood. The whole story is pretty different."

Grimes ad labeled likely worst of year, as race is labeled the most interesting and she goes off script

A roundup that relies mainly on the paper the late Ben Bradlee made a leader . . .

• An Alison Lundergan Grimes TV commercial, apparently limited to coal country, has drawn the highest rank of criticism from "The Fact Checker," Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post. "This particular ad is especially noteworthy because the candidate herself repeats a claim that The Fact Checker has already deemed worthy of Four Pinocchios," Kessler writes. "Not only does she double down on this falsehood, but she makes another highly questionable assertion as well." Kessler, a Cincinnati native, calls that one "nonsense" and concludes, "Grimes puts her own credibility on the line by uttering these recidivist claims herself, rather than relying on an unseen narrator. We realize that the game of politics is sometimes played rough in Kentucky, but this ad is beyond the pale. Indeed, it is likely the worst ad of a nasty campaign year. Grimes should be ashamed of herself."
  
• Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, a "super PAC" supporting Sen. Mitch McConnell, is running an ad replying to the Grimes ad that accuses McConnell of hypocrisy on immigration even though she supports a conditional amnesty bill much like the one he voted for in 1986. After Grimes is shown endorsing "a pathway to citizenship," a female narrator says, "Alison, that is amnesty." McConnell has run no ads on immigration, leaving the subject to his allies, with whom his campaign is not supposed to coordinate.
• "Kentucky now has the most interesting Senate race in the country," the Post's Chris Cillizza writes in his column, "The Fix:" "Strategists in both parties who are closely following the race . . . painted radically different views of the race and suggested that one side is going to be very right and the other very wrong in 12 days' time." The main evidence seems to be the re-involvement of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Senate Majority PAC. "Most Democratic operatives I spoke to -- though not all -- conceded privately that McConnell was still a slight favorite but that there was plenty of reasons to believe that the race could still be won by Grimes. The DSCC quite clearly saw some data -- or got a phone call from someone (cough -- Bill Clinton -- cough) that persuaded them to re-invest."
• Dana Milbank of the Post went to the Bowling Green Rotary Club meeting with Grimes and was surprised. "I saw a candidate who was much less cautious and scripted than the one I had been hearing and reading about. It was as if the reduced expectations had liberated her. . . . She took some hostile questions from the crowd, and she gave as good as she got. Then she went outside and did something that, for her, is most unusual: She held a news conference." After recounting that exchange and some with the Rotarians, Milbank concludes, "It’s tempting to wonder how much better Grimes would have done in this campaign if she had shed her crippling caution earlier."
• Philip Bump of the Post offers a chart that shows one reason Grimes still has a chance: Even though most voters view her negatively, they are even more unhappy with McConnell:
  
  
• George Will, whose column the Post distributes, writes after a visit to Kentucky that the race presents "a constitutional moment that will determine whether the separation of powers will be reasserted by a Congress revitalized by restoration of the Senate’s dignity."

Both campaigns attack each other's ads on issues of voting rights, women's rights, student loans

As usually happens in the final two weeks of a tough race, both sides are drawing fire for some of their advertising.

Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign is expressing outrage at an Alison Lundergan Grimes radio commercial on which former state Sen. Georgia Powers of Louisville accuses the senator of "trying to take the right to vote away from black people," Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He notes that another ad on black-oriented radio said "McConnell has been leading the Republican effort to take away our voting rights."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/22/3495526_grimes-accuses-mcconnell-of-trying.html?sp=/99/322/&rh=1#storylink=cpy

Youngman reports, "McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore called the ad 'disgusting.' "This is the kind of ad an unscrupulous, losing candidate may have considered running 50 years ago that we all collectively hoped was left in the past,' Moore said. Grimes' spokeswoman Charly Norton said the ads are based on McConnell's 2002 vote against extending voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences and legislation he introduced in 2007 to require identification issued by the government to vote." Norton cited a recent Government Accountability Office report saying such laws reduced turnout among African Americans.

Grimes's campaign is circulating a column by Steve Benen of MSNBC accusing McConnell of hypocrisy for running a TV ad with several young women saying Grimes "wants me to think that I’m not good enough. That I couldn’t get a job, unless Washington passed more laws. That I can’t graduate college, without raising your taxes. She wants me to believe that strong women and strong values are incompatible. She thinks I’ll vote for the candidate who looks like me. Rather than the one who represents me."

Benen writes, "This is the sort of ad a politician runs if he’s convinced voters just aren’t very bright. Part of the problem, of course, is that McConnell is a poor messenger for a weak message. He is, after all, the same senator who opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay [Act], voted repeatedly to kill the Violence Against Women Act, rejected the Paycheck Fairness Act, and voted to restrict contraception access." Actually, McConnell voted for the Violence Against Women Act but against a recent version that would have expanded its coverage to immigrants and some incidents on Indian reservations. He said the Paycheck Fairness Act was unnecessary because federal law already band sex discrimination and the new legislation would have encouraged too much litigation.

Democratic senatorial committee to resume ads; WKU poll shows Grimes voters are heavily anti-McConnell

It's still a race, but . . .

• The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which dismayed many Democrats last week by stopping its Kentucky advertising, is back in the race, reports Manu Raju of Politico: "The party committee is reserving $650,000 in air time to boost Alison Lundergan Grimes after reviewing recent internal and public polling, a DSCC official told Politico. The polling, the source says, suggested that independent voters are moving in the Democrat's direction."
• Reid Wilson of The Washington Post writes in his daily "Read In" that Post reporter Paul Kane offers this take on the race: "Alison Lundergan Grimes wins if voters are thinking about Mitch McConnell and his lousy approval ratings. Mitch McConnell wins if voters are considering President Obama and his even lousier approval ratings. In an era of political negativity, there may not be a single race this year that's so dependent on turning attention to the other side."
• 
  "The Kentucky Senate race comes down this: whether voters are more willing to vote against a Barack Obama who is not on the ballot, or a Mitch McConnell who is," writes Aaron Blake of the Post, citing the Big Red Poll by Western Kentucky University social scientists. The poll was taken over two weeks, ending Oct. 19, so it has no value as a current snapshot, but it does reveal that "very few people are actually voting for Grimes. Rather, 60 percent of Grimes supporters say their vote is more about casting a ballot against McConnell," Blake reports. "Voters for McConnell, meanwhile, are much more likely to say it's about supporting the incumbent (62 percent) than opposing Grimes (33 percent)." Blake wonders "what these numbers would look like if you substituted Grimes's name for another Democrat, President Obama. A recent CBS News poll showed 56 percent of Republicans nationally say their midterm vote will be a symbolic vote against Obama. That doesn't mean equally as many McConnell backers would say their vote is more about Obama than McConnell. But given the tenor of the race and the repeated attempts by Republicans to tie Grimes to Obama (along with her all-too-telling refusal to say whether she voted for Obama), it's clear that the president is a major subplot of this race."
• Chris Cillizza of the Post answers the most-asked question about the race: Is it over? "There is a scenario by which Grimes wins, but it is not the most likely scenario. (Of the three major election models that aim to predict outcomes, the best chance Grimes has is a 22 percent probability of winning in the FiveThirtyEight model.)"
• The National Rifle Association is running full-page, color ad in rural newspapers saying that "Mitch McConnell Will Stop the Obama Gun Control Agenda." Here's the rest of the ad:
  
  

Both campaigns air new ads as Bill Clinton visits W. Ky.

Rounding up what we can, with two weeks left in the race . . .

• Making his fifth appearance for Alison Lundergan Grimes, former president Bill Clinton "wowed a partisan crowd in Owensboro, telling more than 3,000 people that U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell has taken the country down a path of partisan bickering and political infighting and should be tossed out of office," Joe Gerth reports for The Courier-Journal. Clinton "repeatedly harped on the idea that Kentuckians should not vote for McConnell just because they are angry with President Barack Obama, Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Who ever heard of giving somebody a six-year job for a two-year protest?" Clinton asked. Former Sen. Wendell Ford of Owensboro, "90 and suffering from lung cancer, attended the rally," Gerth reports. For a report from cn|2, click here; from The Associated Press, here. Later, in Paducah, Grimes and Clinton focused on women voters, WPSD-TV reports.
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/21/3493963_bill-clinton-rallies-democrats.html?sp=/99/322/&rh=1#storylink=cpy
• McConnell started two TV commercials using testimonials, one aimed at union members and blue-collar workers and another with young women, targeting Grimes. Grimes also has a new ad attacking McConnell for his votes to raise his own pay and against the minimum wage, and a commercial about the Brent Spence Bridge in Northern Kentucky, accusing McConnell of inaction on the need for a replacement.
• Both candidates started new ads with African Americans on urban radio stations, Nick Storm of cn|2's "Pure Politics" reports. Sen. Mitch McConnell's ad features Noelle Hunter, who starred in a TV ad about the senator's work to rescue her daughter from Mali; she says she voted for President Obama twice but will be voting for McConnell "and you should too." Grimes's ad has former state Sen. Georgia Davis Powers of Louisville accusing McConnell and Republicans of "trying to take away our right to vote." 
• The state Republican Party has offered to pay the expenses of volunteers to build crowds on McConnell's campaign tours, The Hill reports.

Bluegrass Poll: McConnell 44, Grimes 43, Patterson 5, undecided 8, plus or minus 3.9 points

Today is the midterm of the semester at UK, so we're cramming a lot of significant material into some short blips:

• The latest Bluegrass Poll shows Sen. Mitch McConnell with 44 percent, Alison Lundergan Grimes with 43 percent, David Patterson with 5 percent and 8 percent of self-described likely voters undecided. The poll, taken Oct. 15-19, has an error margin of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. "The small shift in McConnell's favor brings the SurveyUSA poll back in line with several others in recent weeks that have shown McConnell with narrow but steady leads," Sam Youngman writes for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
• Grimes's revelation of her 2008 primary vote for Hillary Clinton, which critics say undercuts her refusal to say if she voted for President Obama, was broadcast last night on KET, in the "Ballot Bomb" report on young voters by University of Kentucky journalism professor Buck Ryan. His son, Austin Ryan, asked the candidates who got their first vote; Grimes said she wanted to vote for Bill Clinton in 1996 but turned 18 just after the election. "I got a chance, though, to vote for Secretary Clinton in 2008," she said.
• Also on the half-hour program on KET, McConnell said the biggest issue young voters should be concerned about is the national debt; Grimes says it is student loan debt. She favors a bill to allow refinancing of student loans and pay for it with tax increases on the wealthy; McConnell voted against it.
• Grimes has campaigned on raising the minimum wage and accused Republicans of sexism. CNN did a story on Hugh Jass Burgers, a restaurant owned by her father, paying $2.13 per hour to tipped employees and the $7.25 minimum wage to others, and using double entendres on its menu.
• McConnell started a three-day bus tour of Eastern Kentucky; Adam Beam of The Associated Press has a coalfield scene-setter. Grimes toured Louisville and Central Kentucky; here's a report from Nick Storm of cn|2's "Pure Politics."

Poll shows McConnell over 50%, another gives GOP apparent historic advantage in voter ID in Ky.

A rolling roundup as we go into the weekend . . .

• Sen. Mitch McConnell leads Alison Lundergan Grimes 52 percent to 44 percent in a Rasmussen Reports poll of 1,000 likely voters taken Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 15-16. The automated telephone poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Only 3 percent were undecided, and 2 percent picked another candidate. "Among the 24% who still could change their minds, the candidates are tied at 41% apiece, with 17% opting for a third-party candidate or undecided," the poll report says. "The incumbent is viewed favorably by 49% of all Kentucky voters and unfavorably by 47%. . . . For Grimes, favorables are 46% and unfavorable 50%." In past elections, Rasmussen's results have leaned slightly Republican.
• FiveThirtyEight.com cited the poll in raising the changes of a McConnell victory to 78 percent from 73 percent. "A Grimes upset is still plausible, but it’s getting less so by the day," Harry Enten writes.
• 
  Kentucky Democrats got some bad news from The Gallup Organization, which revealed an apparently historic advantage for Republicans in party identification among Kentucky voters. "When faced with tough choice of voting for either the very unpopular Mitch McConnell or giving Democrats another seat in the Senate, the people of Kentucky seem to have finally accepted they primarily identify with the GOP," writes Jon Walker of Firedoglake.
• Both candidates are now running television commercials about their work with sexual assault and domestic violence. McConnell went first; Grimes's ad is about the legislation she got passed to allow removal of victims' addresses from voter rolls.
• Former president Bill Clinton will campaign with Grimes Tuesday in Owensboro and Paducah. McConnell will be on a bus tour through Eastern Kentucky Monday through Wednesday. Grimes will be in several of the same counties tomorrow (Saturday).

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."

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee stops running ads in Ky.; Grimes reports $4.4 million on hand

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has stopped running commercials in Kentucky, "a severe blow to Alison Lundergan Grimes in her challenge to Republican leader Mitch McConnell," The Associated Press reports.

"That decision effectively leaves Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes on her own and is rightly read as a sign that national Democrats believe the race is effectively over," Chris Cillizza reports for The Washington Post, noting that Roll Call broke the story.

"One Democratic strategist closely following the Kentucky race insists that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) is still beatable but that Senate Democrats have to prioritize sitting senators at this point in the election cycle," the Post reports. "Another Democratic consultant tracking the McConnell-Grimes contest largely agreed, noting that pulling money out of Kentucky means 'You can play in Georgia, which is within the margin and the trend lines are going the right way, expand buys in Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa and Louisiana, which are all neck and neck, and then gamble on a wildcard like South Dakota.' . . . The reality of the Kentucky Senate race is that the electorate is simply locked in, polarized to the point where persuadable voters are non-existent."

The committee said in a statement, “The DSCC has now spent more than $2 million in Kentucky and continues to make targeted investments in the ground game while monitoring the race for future investments." The committee didn't start advertising in Kentucky until around the first of October.

"The ground game" is the effort to persuade and turn out Grimes voters through direct contact, mainly by volunteers. The DSCC is spending $60 million on that effort in 10 states, including Kentucky, MSNBC reports, calling it "a turbo-charged, data-driven ground operation that aims to ensure the 2014 electorate looks more like 2012—which saw massive turnout from minorities and young people—than the Republican wave election of 2010."

Still, AP's Adam Beam reports, "The committee's decision in Kentucky was in strong contrast to its activities in other states with pivotal Senate races. Democrats continued to spend freely in Iowa, Georgia, North Carolina and several other states as they tried to blunt a Republican drive to gain a we're confident our own substantial resources will be complemented by other investments in the closing days as this airtight race goes down to the wireSenate majority in midterm elections."

The Grimes campaign issued a press release saying it has $4.4 million on hand, "more than any other Democrat in a competitive U.S. Senate race," but spokeswoman Charly Norton said that was its Sept. 30 balance on the quarterly finance report that is due Wednesday. "We're confident our own substantial resources will be complemented by other investments in the closing days as this airtight race goes down to the wire," the release said.

UPDATE: Sen. Mitch McConnell announced that he raised $3.2 million in the third quarter and entered October with $5.2 million in the bank.
 

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."

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

A rolling roundup into the weekend:

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

In hidden-camera videos, Grimes supporters undercut her coal stand; campaign says they're not on staff

By Anthony Pendleton
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes is the latest target of undercover video operator James O’Keefe, who has made a name for himself by going after Democrats and liberal activists.

On Monday, O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action released a hidden-camera video of Grimes campaign supporters that undercut Grimes’ strong advocacy of the troubled coal industry. Her campaign said none of the people are on its payroll.

In the nearly five-minute long video, the Grimes supporters has to say she supports coal because, as Juanita Rodriguez said, “In Kentucky, if you don’t support the coal industry, you’re dead – politically.” Rodriguez adds that politics is “a lying game, unfortunately.” The video identifies her as an “operative” of the Warren County Democratic Party in Bowling Green.

Former state auditor Crit Luallen is shown saying that Grimes has “just gotta do what she’s gotta do to get elected.” Luallen also says “Obama’s regulatory policies have had the impact totally restricting what coal can do.” She also suggests that the issue shouldn't be so big: “Between the market forces and what he’s already done, this is not like a big hook hanging over our heads.”

In a telephone interview, Luallen said, “It's my understanding that the campaign has said no one in that video had been authorized to speak for her. They were volunteers, they were activists, none of them were paid staff.” She added, “I deeply resent being secretly recorded. And this is a kind of underhanded tactic that is unnecessary in the campaign environment and doesn't serve the positive public discourse that needs to happen in the campaign.”

Luallen said in an email to the Bowling Green Daily News, “I’ve known Alison a long time and I know she cares deeply about coal miners, their families and their futures.”

Ziya Smallens, whom the video identifies as a field organizer at a “Louisville Democratic office,” says in the video, “You can’t be a statewide politician and condemn coal. You can’t. You’re not gonna win.”

O’Keefe says in the video that he sent his “reporters into the Grimes campaign,” and to “Grimes campaign offices across the state,” but most if not all of the locations appear to be offices of the Democratic Party, not the Grimes campaign.

Asked about that in an interview, O'Keefe said, "That's where her campaign activities are carried out, were in these offices. So whether they're staffers or campaign workers or officials associated with the campaign - that's sorta why we used that language."

In an email, Grimes campaign press secretary Charly Norton said, “None of the individuals in the video are on our staff.”

However, it appears Smallens may have been a member of the Grimes campaign in the past. On Tuesday, his LinkedIn profile said he was a field organizer for the campaign. One of the duties Smallens listed was being in charge of or helping with “training volunteers to organize their own communities.”

O’Keefe said in a telephone interview that he described Smallens as a field organizer because “they characterized that they were working for the campaign, in the capacity as field organizer.”

On Wednesday, Smallens’s LinkedIn profile had been updated and all mentions of the Grimes campaign had been removed. Less than an hour after an email was sent to Smallens seeking comment for this story, his profile had been completely deleted.

No payments to Smallens or another person the video identifies as a “Grimes field organizer,” Chase Sanders, are listed in payments made by the Grimes campaign in its reports through June 30. Smallens’ LinkedIn profile said he started work in June. Another campaign-spending report, for the third quarter, is due Oct. 15.

On Tuesday, Project Veritas Action released a second video, showing Grimes campaign donor Niko Elmaleh of New York City in a bar, saying of the coal indstry that Grimes will “[expletive] ‘em as soon as she gets elected.”

After the release of the first video on Monday, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s campaign spokeswoman, Allison Moore, said in a press release, “The fact Grimes has not denounced campaign staffers who say she’s anti-coal is just the latest proof that Obama’s Kentucky candidate is no more interested in defending this industry than she was the day she lied about raising the subject at a Harry Reid fundraiser.”

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, is the Senate majority leader. In 2008, he said “Coal makes us sick.” In June, Grimes said she would defend the industry at a private fundraiser Reid sponsored for her, but in her 11-minute speech, she never said the word “coal.” She said afterward that she raised the issue with Reid privately.

Grimes has said that unlike McConnell, she believes in global warming and climate change, "but I think that we have to address, especially, leaving this world in a better place in a balanced manner. We’ve got to keep the jobs that we have here in this state, especially our good coal jobs, fight for them. But we have to diversify our economies in Eastern and Western Kentucky."

On Wednesday morning, after the release of the second video, the Republican Party of Kentucky released a statement calling on Grimes to return the money her campaign received from Elmaleh. He donated $2,600 – the maximum amount for a single election – in June.

O’Keefe says in the video that it is “the beginning of a nationwide undercover investigation into the upcoming election.”

O’Keefe is the head of Project Veritas Action – a non-profit “social welfare organization” organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the main requirement to be classified as a 501(c)(4) is to “operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community.” That has been interpreted to mean that such groups are within the law if they spend half or less of their money on politics.

O’Keefe first gained fame, and is mainly known, for a series of hidden-camera videos released in 2009 that helped to bring down the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. In those videos, ACORN employees offer advice to O’Keefe and Giles on how to evade tax laws. The video gained attention because it showed O”Keefe and Giles dressed as a pimp and prostitute in certain parts. It was discovered nearly a year later that the two were not in costume in the ACORN offices as originally thought.

Although it took nearly a year to catch O’Keefe’s deceitful conduct the first time, it took less than a day the second time. O’Keefe and three others were arrested by the FBI in January 2010 for breaking into Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. All four were initially charged with “entering federal property under false pretenses and with the intent of committing a felony.” Their sentences were dropped to misdemeanors; O’Keefe served three years of probation and 100 hours of community service.