McConnell mum on scandal; vets' group starts ad; senator's office asks papers to run anti-abortion piece

Plenty of news even before lunch, and bigger news after lunch . . .

• Sen. Mitch McConnell refused to take questions today about the resignation of his campaign manager in the wake of a bribery investigation of his last campaign. He told reporters after a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Somerset, "We're moving on," tweets Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader. He said likewise when "asked if there was concern Jesse Benton's continued involvement could hurt campaign," Estep reports.
• In his later story, Estep writes, "He did not respond directly when asked what Benton had told him about the situation in Iowa and whether he was confident Benton had done nothing wrong. 'Yeah, we're moving on. We've got 60-some odd days left in the campaign. We're talking about the future and not the past,' McConnell said. Asked if there had been concern that having Benton stay on would cause a problem for the campaign, McConnell made clear he had nothing more to say about the issue. 'I think everything relating to that issue has already been discussed. It was all out there several days ago,' McConnell said. 'We're moving on ...' When it was noted the public hadn't heard directly from him about Benton, McConnell said, 'You're hearing from me now. 'I think it's time to move on and deal with the issues that are before us for the next six weeks.'"
• The Alison Lundergan Grimes campaign is trying to make a continuing story of the resignation In press releases today, the Grimes camp noted WAVE-TV's report that McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore "hung up the phone after being questioned why we couldn't talk on the record about Benton's resignation." The segment appears in a new web ad which ends with the question, "What did Senator McConnell know and when did he know it?"
• In another release, the Grimes campaign passed along an article by Huffington Post political editor Howard Fineman which started by saying "The five words a senator least likes to hear are not 'you have lost the election.' They are 'The federal investigation is ongoing.'" It included this line: "In a textbook attempt to bury the news, Benton issued a statement to an accommodating local news outlet at the 6 p.m. start of a three-day holiday weekend." Benton's statement was released first to the Lexington Herald-Leader. Fineman concludes his piece with several questions for McConnell.
• Not to be outdone, the McConnell campaign followed with a release saying Grimes and liberal Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren "raised cash in a local slumlord’s luxurious house while ‘raw sewage’ flowed under the homes of his tenants" at a Northern Kentucky trailer park, according to an Aug. 21 report by James McNair of WFPL and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting.
• McConnell's office often sends Kentucky newspapers a column under his name, and they are widely published. The latest is about his co-sponsorship of a bill to ban most abortions after 20 weeks, when the fetus can feel pain, and his opposition to "taxpayer-funded abortions." The email to editors from Press Secretary Robert Steurer said, "Please print the following column by Senator Mitch McConnell or post on your website." Abortion is an important issue to many Kentuckians, and most of them oppose it, but we know some publishers who would say "Buy an ad." Grimes supports abortion rights.
• Here's another substantive issue, which we missed earlier today: VoteVets, a liberal advocacy group, says it is spending $300,000 on TV ads in which Charles Erwin of Mayfield, a victim of Agent Orange in Vietnam tells McConnell, "I did my duty. But after 30 years in Washington, you failed to do yours. It's time for you to go." The ad cites McConnell's vote this year against a bill to improve veterans' benefits.

The American Legion said at the time of the vote, "In addition to including a full repeal of the military retiree cost-of-living-adjustment reduction recently passed by Congress," the bill would have provided "advance appropriations to ensure monthly compensation and pension, as well as education payments, are protected from future budget battles; offering in-state tuition protection for recently transitioned veterans, improving access to mental health and treatment for victims of sexual assault in the military, and authorizing construction of more than 20 community-based outpatient clinics to serve veterans in rural and remote communities." McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore said in an email, "They are cherry-picking one step in the process, while ignoring the fact that he helped move it through the Senate and voted in support of final bill." UPDATE, Sept. 2: Carl Kaelin of Leitchfield, vice chair of the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Legislative Committee, said in a McConnell press release, "Kentucky veterans have no better friend than Senator Mitch McConnell. This ad is extremely misleading as Senator McConnell has been a vocal advocate about the urgent need for reform at the VA and was instrumental in helping ensure Senate passage of the important bipartisan veterans bill that was signed into law last month."

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.

Grimes faces balancing act on women's issues; Libertarian says he has signatures to get on ballot

Rounding up much of the news and commentary in the race since our last post:

• Alison Lundergan Grimes faces "a balancing act" as she as she works to get female voters to cast ballots for her "while avoiding the pitfalls Democrats often face in Kentucky on social and cultural issues such as abortion," Sam Youngman writes for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/07/17/3341075/in-anti-abortion-kentucky-grimes.html#storylink=cpy

• Independent Senate candidate Ed Marksberry of Owensboro announced a few days ago that he was abandoning his effort to obtain 5,000 signatures by the Aug. 12 deadline to get on the Nov. 4 ballot, but the Libertarian Party of Kentucky "announced Thursday that its candidate, 42-year-old David Patterson of Mercer County, appears poised" to get enough signatures, Phillip Bailey of WFPL reports. "We're currently sitting right at about 5,000 as of today actually," Patterson, told Bailey. "The 8,000 is our comfort zone." Patterson, right, is a Harrodsburg police officer who makes a habit of carrying a pistol in a holster while off duty.
• The candidates should accept Centre College President John Roush's proposal for a Sept. 3 debate at the Danville school, Joe Gerth writes in his weekly column for The Courier-Journal, and the Louisville newspaper says likewise in an editorial. A Herald-Leader editorial called on Grimes and Sen. Mitch McConnell to accept the Centre debate and one proposed by the League of Women Voters of Kentucky.
• Pikeville lawyer Larry Webster, who typically sprays several rhetorical shotgun blasts in his Herald-Leader column, included the Senate race Sunday: "Any place where it is worth spending $100 million to elect a senator ought to be worth staying in. Maybe if we spend $200 million to elect a senator, we might get one with enough foresight to anticipate the obsolescence of coal and do something about the future other than blaming the colored guy."
• Former Sen. Wendell Ford announced that he is starting chemotherapy for cancer in one of his lungs and another unspecified location, and thus won't be campaigning for Grimes, at least any time soon. Ford's announcement prompted an appreciation from C-J Washington Correspondent Jim Carroll in his weekly column.
  
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/07/20/3343978/e-ky-kids-trek-south-haunted-by.html#storylink=cpy

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

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

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

July 2 roundup: Another military-women mailer, this one more specific

Women's issues are in play today:

• Adam Beam of The Associated Press looks at Sen. Mitch McConnell's vocal support of the Supreme Court ruling that lets closely held companies opt out of the federal health-reform law's requirement to include contraceptive coverage in mandatory insurance for their employees: "Political observers said McConnell has been talking more about social issues such as abortion during this campaign than he has for most of his 30-year Senate career. That could be a byproduct of this year's Republican primary, where McConnell had to defeat Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin." (Read more)

• The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, a "super PAC" supporting McConnell, has sent its fourth direct-mail advertisement touting McConnell's support of women in the military. It mentions the same issues as before, one with more specifics: bills to take sexual-assault cases out of the chain of command and to allow women to fly combat missions. Earlier ads said the latter bill would give them "more hands-on opportunities." For a copy of the latest ad, click here.

July 1 roundup: McConnell talks social issues in west, Grimes plans to talk jobs, coal, diversification in east

McConnell goes west, Grimes heads east:

• Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has rarely campaigned on abortion, stressed the issue in a meeting with the editorial board of The Paducah Sun. He linked the issue with "Monday's Supreme Court decision that rejected the contraceptives mandate for some Christian corporations" under federal health reform, reporter Carrie Dillard writes. Alison Lundergan Grimes, who supports abortion rights, opposed the ruling.
• Grimes's campaign announced that she will campaign Wednesday and Thursday in eight Appalachian counties, seven of which have coal mines. "Alison will speak with voters about her commitment to strengthening the middle class, protecting Kentucky’s coal industry and making smart investments to diversify our economy for the future," said a news release. She will be in Whitley, Knox and Bell counties Wednesday and in Clay, Leslie, Perry, Knott and Powell counties Thursday. Only Powell has no coal.

June 30 roundup: McConnell vows to push abortion limit as Senate majority leader

News beyond Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Sunday visit for Alison Lundergan Grimes:

• In advance of the visit, Grimes "introduced a plan aimed at relieving student debt that includes dropping student loan interest to the discount rate banks pay, allowing students to refinance the loans and fully funding Pell grants," reports Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal. "The Grimes plan also calls for making sure women are paid the same as men to help women pay off their student debts."
• In a "passionate" speech at the National Right to Life convention Saturday in Louisville, Sen. Mitch McConnell "sounded more than ready to take the Senate reins from Majority Leader Harry Reid" to advance anti-abortion legislation if Republicans take over the Senate, Cortney O'Brien reports on TownHall.com. "It's long past time for us to join the ranks of most other civilized nations to protect children past 20 weeks in the womb," McConnell said.
• "Grimes has said she believes the issue of abortion should not be dictated by government but should be a choice a woman makes with her doctor," Gerth writes from the meeting. "She favors keeping the law as it is under Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming the right to an abortion." Gerth notes that McConnell didn't speak with reporters afterward and writes, "Abortion hasn't been much of an issue" in the race because the candidates "don't talk about it in stump speeches."
• PBS NewsHour's "Morning Line" says "Republicans believe conservatives will come home" and "McConnell will find a way to pull out a win in November, despite most public and private polls showing the race to be a dead heat." Grimes must find a way to get out from Obama's shadow, "an effort not helped by the administration’s recent announcement of new regulations to cut carbon pollution from power plants in this coal-friendly state." 
• Today is the last day of a calendar quarter, making it the end of a campaign-finance reporting period, and both candidates are making pleas for money. An email from McConnell was titled "One last time" and one from Grimes was titled "My last email."