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."

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.

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."

Students cover issues in the Senate race

Students in "Covering the U.S. Senate Race," a special course in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications, are covering issues in the race between Sen. Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan Grimes. To read stories on immigration, health care and the economy and jobs, click here.

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.

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."

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."

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."

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

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

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

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

Where the race stands, six weeks before the election

By Anthony Pendleton and Megan Ingros

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Information for this story was also contributed by Paige Hobbs, Cheyene Miller and Tyler Spanyer.

In less than two months, Kentucky voters will head to the polls to vote in the election for the U.S. Senate. Incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell is facing off against national Democratic newcomer Alison Lundergan Grimes.

This is arguably the most important and most-watched race in the nation. McConnell, 72, is the Senate minority leader, meaning he’s the top official of the party that has fewer members in the Senate. He is expected to become majority leader if the GOP wins enough seats to take control of the chamber.

Grimes, 35, would be Kentucky’s first female senator, and the state’s first Democratic senator since 1999. She is Kentucky's secretary of state – a position she won in 2011, her first elected public office.

             As the state’s chief election officer, Grimes got the legislature to approve changes to help overseas military voting, but the new law does not allow soldiers to vote electronically, as she wanted. Grimes also started a program that allows victims of domestic violence and sexual assault to "remove their addresses from public voter registration records in an attempt to stay safe from their abusers," as described by the Lexington Herald-Leader.

             McConnell says his leadership job puts him in the middle of every big decision in Washington, and that he will be even more powerful, as majority leader, if Republicans take control of the Senate. Grimes wants McConnell’s long history in Washington to be viewed as a liability, by painting him as an architect of Washington gridlock.  

             Over the course of his nearly 30-year Senate career, McConnell is best known nationally for his fights against limits on campaign contributions and spending. In a secretly recorded talk in June, he said the 2001 passage of the McCain-Feingold law limiting donations to political parties was “the worst day of my political life.”

             McConnell’s big issue in this race has been coal, blaming Environmental Protection Agency regulations for the loss of mining jobs in Eastern Kentucky. Disinterested observers have noted other factors, especially cheap natural gas that has displaced coal as an electric-generating fuel.

             McConnell has identified Grimes with President Obama, who is unpopular in Kentucky, based largely on her statement during her 2011 campaign that she supported the national Democratic platform. That seems to be working for him, as he has built leads in coal-bearing Eastern and Western Kentucky.

Grimes has replied with an ad saying “I’m not Barack Obama. I disagree with him on guns, coal and the EPA.” She also talks about coal miners’ safety and health, and her campaign has called McConnell’s record on those issues “deplorable.”

             The underlying issue is jobs. Kentucky’s unemployment rate remains higher than the rest of the country, and both candidates promise to promote job growth in the state.

Grimes has tried to make much of McConnell’s remark, when asked in Beattyville what he would do to bring jobs to Lee County, that “Economic development is a Frankfort issue. That is not my job.” McConnell has said he was in Beattyville to discuss jobs, and did so in a speech after the reporter left.

Grimes has focused on economic issues such as equal pay for women -- but has been unable to keep a clear lead among female voters – and raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour over three years, from $7.25.

McConnell, citing a report from the Congressional Budget Office, has said raising the wage to that level would cost half a million jobs, but has also said there might be circumstances in which it could be raised, after the economy improves more.

McConnell wants to repeal the federal health-care reform law while Grimes wants to delay its coverage mandate and make other changes. She says McConnell’s approach would risk the coverage of 521,000 people who have obtained it through the state exchange established under the law.

On immigration, Grimes supports the bipartisan, comprehensive reform bill that passed the Senate and would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. McConnell has said only legal residency is needed to attract needed workers, and immigration reform should be done through separate bills after the border is secure.

Grimes and McConnell have had one joint question-and-answer session, before directors of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation. KET will host a debate between them Oct. 13. The debate will not include Libertarian David Patterson, a 43 year-old Harrodsburg police officer who didn’t get his name on the ballot until August.

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

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

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

Grimes, McConnell show some big differences in the closest thing yet to a debate in the race

By Megan Ingros and Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Sen. Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan Grimes came the closest they have yet to a debate at the Kentucky Farm Bureau forum Tuesday, and their clearest differences on big issue were on health care and immigration.

Grimes was the most detailed she has been in a public discussion about health-care reform. Grimes indicated that she supports Kynect, the state health-insurance exchange, created by Gov. Steve Beshear and funded by Obamacare, where people sign up for Medicaid or buy insurance.

“For the first time ever, because of our governor, 500,000 Kentuckians are able to go to the doctor, their kids get checkups before school, and many of them are farm families in rural Kentucky,” she said. “The law isn’t perfect but we have to work to fix it. . . . We have to work to streamline the Affordable Care Act, to make sure there aren’t over-burdensome regulations on our businesses, especially our small businesses.”

Grimes endorsed President Obama’s delay in the law’s employer mandate and suggested that he should also live up to his promise that “If you like your doctor, you can keep it.”

She actually appeared to be referring to keeping old insurance policies, because her next words were, “We should be working to extend that grandfathering clause so we live up to that promise that Washington politicans made to Kentuckians. . . . It requires a senator, though, who doesn’t want to repeal root and branch the access to health care that Kentuckians just got for the first time.”

McConnell answered, “She won’t use the words, but she supports Obamacare, he single worst piece of legislation that’s been passed in the last half-century.”  He said Obamacare is going to cost jobs and it “ought to be pulled out root and branch and we ought to start over.”

McConnell said what should have been done is “truly national competition among health-insurance companies to keep prices down and quality up,” as well as “a national medical malpractice standard to bring some sanity to the litigation lottery that’s confronting every health-care provider in America; and thirdly, we need to allow small businesses to form groups for the purpose of more purchasing power on the open market.”

Citing a study by the Congressional Budget Office, McConnell said the law will only cover 10 million of the 40 million people who were uninsured, and will “cost 2.5 million jobs.” The study says the predicted reduction, through 2024, will come “almost entirely because workers will choose to provide less labor,” not because jobs will be eliminated.

McConnell said Kentucky will not be able to afford its expansion of the Medicaid program, which covers about three-fourths of the newly insured. “She applauds it,” he said. “It’s fine for the governor because the first three years the federal government will pick up 100 percent of the tab, but after that, the state’s going to be in serious financial problems.”

On immigration, Grimes argued that if McConnell hadn’t “stood in the way” of a comprehensive reform bill that passed the Senate but died in the Republican-controlled House, ”We might not see the crisis we see at the border today,” with unaccompanied minors streaming across.

Grimes endorsed the bill’s “pathway to citizenship,” but McConnell said only legal residency is needed to attract needed workers and “We shouldn’t do comprehensive; I think we need to bust it up,” into separate bills. “Obamacare was pretty comprehensive.” “We need to make changes, more merit based, to people who can immediately help our country, he said.

Grimes started out by saying McConnell had broken a promise to pass a farm bill last year, and said farmers were disadvantaged by the lack of a law for several months. McConnell said, “No one was disadvantaged by any of that.”

Grimes, who stood at a lectern to answer each question, repeatedly jabbed at McConnell for being a no-show at Senate Agriculture Committee meetings. McConnell, who remained seated while speaking, cited his awards from Farm Bureau for legislative accomplishments and said afterward, “She doesn’t really understand the legislative process,” in which party leaders “have more consequential things to do” than attend committee meetings.

In her opening statement, Grimes said if McConnell, “Never has a senator been paid so much to do so little for the people of Kentucky and it’s come at the expense of our farm families.” She ended her statement by saying, “It requires, members of the Farm Bureau, putting out to pasture a senator of the past.”

The candidates alternated answering first to a series of questions posed by Farm Bureau directors.

Asked about international trade and marketing, Grimes said, “I believe in free and open trade but it must be fair trade.” McConnell cited the lack of action on trade agreements under Obama and said, “The biggest winners of trade agreements are American agriculture and her supporters are totally opposed on everything you believe in on trade.”

When asked about fiscal policy and how they plan to balance the budget, McConnell said “The best answer to the deficit is to get the economy growing,.” and said that could be done by reducing the regulatory efforts of the Obama administration, which he said constitute the main reason that the economic recovery has been slow.

Referring to our national debt, Grimes said “There are 17 trillion reasons why Kentucky needs a new senator.” She said the country fought “two wars on credit cards” in Afghanistan and Iraq, referring to the deficits and debt built up after the tax cuts of the George W. Bush administration.

On tax policy, McConnell said he was responsible for getting a $5 million exemption in the estate tax, and then for making it permanent. Grimes said she is in favor of an additional $5 million exemption for agricultural estates. McConnell said he would “like to get rid of the death tax entirely.”

Both candidates said they are against expanded water regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency, but McConnell said Grimes would enable those efforts because she would vote for Harry Reid as majority leader if she is elected.

Referring to Republican prospects of taking over the Senate, McConnell said he has a good chance of becoming majority leader. He made the case that he gives Kentucky “a distinct advantage” by being one of the only two Senate party leaders Kentucky has ever had, and can increase that as majority leader.

Grimes, slapping McConnell and Obama in the same passage, said "Washington isn't working for us. . . . He's the reason the mess exists. He's the reason the president is wrongly using executive orders."

McConnell draws applause from bipartisan group of county-government leaders

By Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

No U.S. state has suffered more under President Obama than Kentucky, Sen. Mitch McConnell told leaders of the state's county governments in a well-received speech in Louisville Friday.

"No state in America has fared worse under this administration than ours, and it starts with the war on coal," McConnell told the joint convention of the Kentucky County Judge-Executives Association and the Kentucky Magistrates and Commissioners Association.

The bipartisan group was quiet as McConnell laid out his familiar litany on coal, but applauded when he offered a simple formula for solving the crisis of unaccompanied minors streaming into the country from Central America: "Secure the border, treat the children humanely and return them immediately." He acknowledged, "It would probably take a change in law to do that."

McConnell said "a significant part" of Obama's request for $3.7 billion to resolve the border crisis is for the Department of Health and Human Services, "leading me to have the suspicion that they expect these kids to be here for a long time." Typically, he said, undocumented immigrants are given a court date, released, "and a significant percentage of them never come back" to court.

McConnell said Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, in speaking to reporters after her appearance before the group the day before, "seemed not to understand the difference" in Obama's request and the immigration-reform bill that passed the Senate last year, with him in opposition. He said the bill's "provisions with regard to border security were totally inadequate." For video of his immigration remarks, from cn|2's "Pure Politics," click here.

In his initial remarks about his Democratic opponent, McConnell said, "Shes a new face, but she's a new face for the status quo, for no change at all. A new face for the same majority leader, a new face to support the president, a new face for the status quo. So if you're satisfied with the condition of the country an Kentucky, maybe you think that's the right vote for you."

Noting that the officials in the audience are elected on a partisan basis, he said, "My suspicion is no matter what ticket you ran on you're probably not happy with the condition of this country." Earlier, he said knew that many in the crowd are "of the same party as the president. You don't talk about it much anymore, but I know you are."

The senator's closing argument was that replacing him with Grimes would mean "a dramatic reduction in influence in the Senate" for Kentucky, "not to mention a vote for Harry Reid [for majority leader] and the status quo in the Senate. I think it's time to change America." That drew another round of applause from the bipartisan crowd.