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

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

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