McConnell: 5 to 10 Democratic senators appear ready to vote with GOP on some issues; EPA still top target

By Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said Saturday that half the senators who have called him since his re-election have been Democrats, giving him hope that he can create bipartisan coalitions as the chamber's new majority leader, especially to block Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

McConnell at meeting

"They're anxious to be under new management, where their work has a chance to be heard, and we're going to do that," McConnell told a meeting of the state Republican Party Executive Committee, adding later, "It's apparent that a number of the Democrats have had it up to here with Barack Obama themselves." He told reporters later, "I think they're getting a little bit tired of doing the president's bidding."

"That's the good news," McConnell told his partisans. "The bad news is, I haven't heard anything from the president since the election that indicates he has an interest in changing anything." He added later, "I keep waiting for Obama to get the message and move to the center."

He said to applause that just as Obama has declared "war on coal," he will "declare war on EPA."

McConnell made clear during his campaign that he would use budget bills to keep the agency from pursuing proposed limits on carbon-dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, but he said there are issues other than coal: "There is a widespread anger over the country" about EPA's overreach, he said. He told reporters later, "Coal is the most conspicuous example if it, but it's happening in a lot of other areas."

The other example he cited is EPA's proposal to redefine "waters of the United States," a seminal phrase in the Clean Water Act, in ways that have confused and angered many agricultural interests.

Republicans will hold at least 53 of the 100 seats in the new Senate, and McConnell said "I'm pretty optimistic" that a 54th seat will go their way after a Dec. 6 runoff in Louisiana. Asked if he thinks he can assemble the 60 votes that he said would continue to be needed to pass significant legislation, he said "I think there's a pool of five to 10 Democrats" who could create a center-right coalition.

McConnell said that number may become clearer after the Senate votes next week on the bill that would order completion of the Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline from Canada to U.S. refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. "We don't know," he said, because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has prevented votes on such legislation, including coal issues. Here's a video clip from cn|2's "Pure Politics":

Whatever bills the Republican-controlled Senate and House may pass, Obama could veto, and McConnell has said that Republicans will not shut down the government by holding appropriations bills hostage.

Asked if GOP leaders might authorize continued operation of essential government services but exclude EPA from that, he said the question was too hypothetical to answer. Asked if a bill that combined a number of issues could get the 67 Senate votes needed to override a veto, he said "I have no idea."

He told the party committee that he expects to have the "bourbon summit" with Obama that has been discussed since the president said he would like to meet with the senator over Kentucky's most famous beverage, but "Whether it's anything beyond a p.r. gimmick remains to be seen."

He concluded his remarks to the committee by saying, "It's harder to be the offensive coordinator than the defensive coordinator . . . It's a responsibility I welcome, and I'm going to carry it out as best I can."

McConnell then told reporters, "I'm going to be more inclined to judge him by what he does than by what he says. I don't want to minimize this opportunity for the country." He said many items that need attention, such as a long-range transportation plan and regulation of government-sponsored financial enterprises, "are not all that partisan." Here's a cn|2 video:

McConnell reiterated that he will support Sen. Rand Paul if he runs for president, but said Paul would certainly seek re-election in 2016. State law bars someone from being on the same ballot for both offices, and Paul's camp has suggested a way around that would be to replace the Republican presidential primary with a caucus.

McConnell said he had given no thought to that idea.

That issue would be decided by the party committee that McConnell addressed first.

The senator said that since he was speaking to a room full of "political junkies," he wanted to mention a few exit-poll results; the one he highlighted was that he won the votes of women by 3 percentage points even though he had a female challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes: "I think we successfully made the argument to women that while gender's not unimportant, it's not the only reason to cast a vote in an election."

The crowd appreciated McConnell's digs at Bill and Hillary Clinton, who campaigned repeatedly for Grimes and may think that Kentucky is on the list of states she can carry in the 2016 presidential race. "I don't think she'll ever be competitive in Kentucky," he said. "This is not 1992 or 1996," when her husband won the state with pluralities, the last one with 0.9 percent of the vote.

McConnell says he's for Paul, but is mum on plan for 2020; reiterates vow to go after anti-coal regulations

Photo by J. Scott Applewhite, AP

"There were only two things Mitch McConnell didn't want to talk about Thursday — whether he will run for re-election in 2020 and his eventual legacy," Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader after scoring the first one-to-one interview after the senator's re-election.

The big news from the story is that McConnell said he would support Sen. Rand Paul for president if he decides to run: "We've developed a very tight relationship, and I'm for him. . . . Whatever he decides to do. I don't think he's made a final decision on that. But he'll be able to count on me."

But when it comes to the 2015 Republican primary for governor, McConnell told Youngman he won't take sides, citing his failed endorsement of Trey Grayson against Paul in 2010. "I've learned my lesson there," he said. "That clearly was a mistake. We all make them, and that's one if I had to do over again I would."

McConnell reiterated that his top priority for Kentucky is "to try to do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in" from its proposed limits on carbon-dioxide emissions, which would effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants, a major goal of President Obama. "It will be hard because the only good tool to do that ... is through the spending process, and if he feels strongly enough about it, he can veto the bill," McConnell said.

"As he rattled off the coal-producing counties he won Tuesday for the first time in his career, McConnell said he feels a 'deep responsibility' to stop the Environmental Protection Agency" from regulating CO2 to combat climate change, Youngman reports.

"I'm absolutely convinced from the people I talk to around the country, not just here but around the country, that coal has a future," he said. "The question is whether or not coal is going to have a future here. It's got a future in Europe. It's got a future in China, India, Australia. But not here? . . . It makes me very angry, and I'm going to do everything I can to try to stop them."

For another Youngman story on McConnell's view of dealing with Obama, click here.

Grimes was short and not sweet in her concession

By Brenton Ward

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes kept her remarks brief Tuesday night as she conceded the U.S. Senate election to incumbent Mitch McConnell. 

Grimes did not mention or congratulate McConnell in her three-minute speech, instead using her last appearance of the race to repeat the issues she had hoped to take to with her to Washington.

“My hope is that a message has been sent to Congress, that we need to work to increase the minimum wage, to close the gender pay gap, and bring good paying jobs back to the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” she said.

On stage with her husband and Gov. Steve Beshear, Grimes tried to elevate a clearly unenthusiastic crowd of about 200 people outside The Carrick House in downtown Lexington.

“While tonight didn’t bring us the result that we had hoped for, this journey, the fight for you -- it was worth it,” Grimes said. She added later, “This fight was for each and every one of you, and I will work my hardest to keep this amazing organization that we have built together intact to fight for a brighter and better future.”

Grimes has served as Kentucky’s secretary of state since 2012, defeating a Democrat whom Gov. Steve Beshear appointed to fill a vacancy, then easily winning the general election. She became the Democratic nominee for Senate after receiving 77 percent of the votes in a four-way primary with token opponents.

Grimes called McConnell to concede within the first hour after polls had closed in Western Kentucky. The Associated Press called the election for McConnell minutes after those closings. He went on to receive 56.2 percent of the vote to 40.7 percent for Grimes and 3.1 percent for Libertarian David Patterson.

While running on the Democratic ticket, Grimes went to great lengths to distance herself from President Obama, going so far as refusing to say whether or not she voted for the president in 2008 and 2012.  McConnell’s campaign often tied Grimes to Obama in speeches and advertisements.

Grimes said she disagreed with Obama’s coal and gun policies, and was endorsed by the United Mine Workers of America and other labor unions, as well as Kentucky’s largest newspapers, The Courier-Journal and The Lexington Herald-Leader.  She also brought in high-profile Democrats, primarily former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to campaign for her. 

Leading Ky. political scientist gives views on the race

UPDATE: Here's a video of Voss discussing the race.

Dr. Stephen Voss of the University of Kentucky is perhaps the state's leading political scientist, and the one most quoted in stories on the Senate race. He is the latest poli-sci guy to answer and comment on a series of questions about Senate races from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Here are some excerpts:

"Although Grimes had some success convincing voters that she might be better for the coal industry than McConnell, especially in the mountainous region of Eastern Kentucky, the issue remained tilted toward the Republicans throughout the contest. The sluggish economic recovery also served as a backdrop to the 2014 Kentucky Senate campaign. Kentuckians might be conservative on social and cultural issues, but they do not especially tilt to the right when it comes to domestic economic policy. It's a poor state, and many Kentuckians rely on national social-welfare policies to get by." However, "Turmoil in Syria and Iraq, as well as at the southern U.S. border, helped keep attention directed away from bread-and-butter economic matters."

"Kentucky contains a disproportionately large number of swing voters who were in play for the Senate election. . . . These relatively moderate, if not conservative, voters tend to be registered Democrats but they often side with the Republicans in national elections, and many seem to have no loyalty to either side. . . . The McConnell strategy therefore was simple and straightforward: Do anything and everything to link Grimes to the President. . . . McConnell and Grimes appear to be splitting these swing voters fairly evenly, depending on how they're defined, but Grimes needed a much better share than that to compensate for the conservative tilt of the state's partisans." (Read more)

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."

National news media taking a final look at the race; Kentucky campuses holding mock election

A rolling roundup as we head into the final weekend . . .

• "Kentucky's Senate race, one of the most closely watched in the country, boils down to which Washington insider is worse in the eyes of voters:" Sen. Mitch McConnell or President Obama, writes Francine Kiefer of The Christian Science Monitor. Stephen Voss, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky, summed it up for Kiefer this way: "We have an unpopular senator who leads the resistance against an unpopular president."
• "McConnell’s path to victory runs through the hilly coal fields [sic] in the east, the buzzing sheet metal factories along the state’s southern tier and in the barns leaking with pouring rain in the flat and cow-spotted western farmland," Jason Horowitz of The New York Times writes after traveling with McConnell through those areas. "At the end of his 14 campaign rallies and hundreds of miles lined with falling orange and ocher autumn leaves, Mr. McConnell seemed to have reached a better, less anxious, place."
• McConnell seems to be a little looser than usual as the race comes to a close. He told 85 business and political leaders at a Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce meeting, "The American people have seemed to reach the conclusion they have had enough of this crap," meaning "six years of Democratic control of both the presidency and the Senate," reports Amanda Van Benschoten of The Kentucky Enquirer.
• The Kentucky Campus Compact, comprising colleges and universities in the state, is holding a mock election online. The site also has links to overviews of the race, a voters' guide, the KET debate, a debate fact check, this blog and information about voting, campaign finance and polling places. The site is co-sponsored by the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at Northern Kentucky University, the Campus Election Engagement Project and the Public Life Foundation of Owensboro.

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.

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.

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

McConnell (Photo by Mark Cornelison)

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

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

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

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

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

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."

Roundup: Sunday takeouts, comment and a tour map

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

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

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.

Debate didn't appear to have much impact on voters

By Paige Hobbs

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

            The only true debate of Kentucky’s U.S Senate race didn’t appear to change many votes, judging from interviews immediately after the debate with voters who said in the recent Bluegrass Poll that they had chosen a candidate but might change their minds.

And supporters of Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who has had some difficulty sending a clear, positive message to voters, said her appearance did nothing to change their minds, either.

Steve Clevinger of Kenton County, a retired postal worker, sad in the recent poll that he was for Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, but wasn’t sure if he had made up his mind. After the debate, he sounded more certain.

“If I had to pick a winner in the debate, I would say it was Mitch McConnell,” Clevinger said. “It didn’t seem that Secretary Grimes could address a subject without attacking the senator. His name came up more often than her own policies.”

Grimes repeatedly called in the debate for raising the minimum wage, but Clevinger said, “If she had her way, what she would be doing is creating a permanent underclass.”

Grimes supporter Alma Irvin, a retired business supervisor from Hopkinsville, thought differently.

“She sounded like she’s for the people and wants to help the people, overall I think she won the debate,” Irvin said. Asked her overall opinion of McConnell, she said “It seems like he’s been in there so long that he’s lost interest.”

Danny Stone of Paducah, a retired coal miner who said he has black-lung disease and got no help from McConnell’s office, said in the poll that he was for Grimes but could still change his mind. After the debate, he said “She’s more agreeable and aggressive. . . . She’s willing and able to work in a constructive manner with Republicans.”

Morning roundup: As we wait for the debate, a look at issues of coal and climate change

Boston Globe illustration for column by John Sununu

Here's a pre-debate roundup:

• "As the gulf widens between Democrats and Republicans nationally on climate change, coal has closed the gap in Kentucky, particularly in the U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes," writes Scott Wartman of The Kentucky Enquirer, outlining their stands on the related issues.
• Former Sen. John Sununu, a Republican from New Hampshire, writes in The Boston Globe that President Obama's energy policy is hurting Democratic candidates, especially in the major coal-producing states of Kentucky, West Virginia and Montana. In Kentucky, "Obama’s war on coal turned an otherwise competitive race in Republicans’ favor." The race still ranks at the bottom, 13th, among The Washington Post's ranking of the likelihood that a seat will change parties.
• Wartman also has a story about what to watch for in the debate, tonight at 8 EDT on KET and C-SPAN.
• The race is the "closest watched in the nation," Michael Falcone writes on ABC News's "The Note."
• "The long-awaited battle of the Bluegrass is must-see TV Monday evening," Jessica Taylor writes for The Hill. She quotes University of Kentucky professor and commentator Al Cross as saying Grimes's "refusal to say whether or not she voted for Obama is not playing well. Not because of the substance but because of her inability to articulate a sensible answer to a tough questions. She’s got to be able to do that Monday night or she’s toast.”
• Al Hunt of Bloomberg News writes for The New York Times about the avalanche of secret money in Senate races: "When he fought campaign finance reform years ago, Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, suggested the real antidote was disclosure. Now he says forcing disclosure would run afoul of the First Amendment and would harass groups such as the Humane Society."
• We know more about Grimes's schedule after the debate than usual; she has announced a series of Northern Kentucky appearances Tuesday with Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Hillary Clinton will be speaking with her at a Wednesday night rally in Louisville. McConnell's Senate office announced that he will spend Tuesday in Whitley and Laurel counties, Republican strongholds.

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."

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

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

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

McConnell targets CO2 rules, rejects U.S. taking the lead on climate change, and says scientists disagree

By Anthony Pendleton and Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Sen. Mitch McConnell gave more specifics Friday of how Congress would attempt to limit Obama administration regulations if he and other Republicans gain control of the Senate. And he rejected the idea that the United States should take the lead on limiting carbon-dioxide emissions to fight climate change.

The Senate Republican leader told the crowd at a luncheon hosted by Commerce Lexington that he'll have Congress pass a budget if he becomes majority leader and the GOP gains control of the Senate. He added that they would tack onto appropriations bills that would include “directions” and “restrictions.” Referring to the restrictions, McConnell said, “Right at the top of my list is coal regulations.”

After his speech, McConnell said he meant the regulations that would limit carbon-dioxide emissions in an effort to fight climate change.

One of these proposed regulations is the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce CO2 emissions 30 percent by 2030. Coal supporters oppose such regulations because it would, in effect, prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power plants using current technology.

McConnell has declined to give his opinions about climate change, though 97 percent of climate scientists published in peer-reviewed journals say the earth is warming and human activity is primarily responsible.

The campaign of Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes, who has said she believes in climate change and favors "a balanced approach" to it that would protect coal jobs, has criticized McConnell for not giving a definitive answer. Asked about that, McConnell said, "I have given a very definitive answer. I've said that whether or not this set of scientists or that set of scientists are correct is irrelevant."

McConnell said in his speech that the United States is the only country in the world trying to limit carbon emissions. “Everybody else has figured this out, except us,” he said.

McConnell tried to finish answering questions by saying, “The United States alone pursuing this crusade will have no impact on this mission, even if you thought this was an important mission.”

As he left, McConnell was asked if the nation with the world’s largest economy, the United States, shouldn’t take the first step in limiting carbon, he didn’t answer immediately, then said, “I’m not for taking it.”

Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Bissett said later that if the U.S. completely eliminated its use of coal, it would only reduce the world's greenhouse-gas emissions by about 3 percent.

McConnell said in his speech that the regulations would reduce the advantage of low-cost industrial power in Kentucky, which gets more than 90 percent of its electricity from coal. “The war on coal is not just a war on coal-producing counties, it’s a war on all of Kentucky,” he said.

McConnell was introduced at the luncheon by Kentucky’s leading coal operator, Joe Craft of Alliance Resource Partners. He said McConnell had led the fight for the coal industry in Congress, and noted that President Obama said last week that while he may not be on the ballot, all of his policies are.

Craft said the state and nation have suffered from the policies of Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and “It’s time to stop them in their tracks. . . . For Kentucky to prosper, Mitch McConnell needs to be the next majority leader.”

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.

Pro-McConnell group uses images of Chinese in 'War in Coal' mailer; Grimes won't say if she voted for Obama

A rolling roundup as we head into the pre-debate weekend . . .

• The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, a political committee supporting Sen. Mitch McConnell with money from undisclosed donors, has mailed this piece (click on images for larger versions):
  
  
  
  
  
• "Grimes has refused seven times in the past seven days to say whether or not she voted for President Barack Obama for president," Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Grimes was asked three times by a Herald-Leader reporter after an event on Oct. 2 if she voted for Obama, ignoring the question and turning her back on the reporter asking it. On Thursday, Grimes refused four times to tell The Courier-Journal’s editorial board if she voted for Obama." For The Washington Post's story, click here.
• Grimes has new television and radio commercials responding to those by pro-McConnell committees accusing her of favoring amnesty and citizenship for illegal immigrants. "I've never supported amnesty or benefits for illegal immigrants, and I never will," Grimes says. She favors a Senate-passed bill that would create a path to citizenship, with penalties, waiting periods and other requirements. Opponents call that amnesty, but proponents do not.
• McConnell started a new TV ad featuring Dr. Sandy Schuldheisz of Somerset saying, "As a doctor, I see how Obamacare hurts patients’ access to care. As a mom, I know it hurts families. . . . Like many, we now pay more for less coverage."