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

It's still a race, but . . .

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

A father, fees, fines and a front page

This item is based on submissions from students in the Covering the Senate Race course.

Jerry Lundergan, father of Alison Lundergan Grimes, refused for years to pay various fees and fines on property he owns with his daughters -- 1 percent each, he told Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader. The newspaper described that as a "small stake" in its headline at the top of Sunday's front page.

Lundergan told Youngman that Grimes was unaware of any fees or penalties, and "If I truly believed your intent was to create a story about me and the former Continental Inn property, this would be a non-issue; however, I know that the outlying intent is to try to embarrass or link Alison Grimes to a piece of property." He said she was not involved in his decision to pay the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.

The 1,778-word story described Lundergan's battle with the government over "more than $20,000 in storm sewer fees and fines" since he bought the property in 2005 and demolished the hotel. After getting discounts the city called "unprecedented," Lundergan made his first payment in June and a larger, second payment the day after an opposition-research firm working for Sen. Mitch McConnell asked for a city records on the matter. Youngman reported that McConnell's campaign gave the records to the newspaper, which then got "similar records" on its own.

McConnell agrees to KET debate (no Patterson), gets help from NRA mailer; editor defends jobs quote

Finally, a real debate has been scheduled; and there's more news and commentary:

• Sen. Mitch McConnell has accepted KET’s invitation to debate Alison Lundergan Grimes Oct. 13, three weeks before the election and about six weeks after Labor Day, when he wanted to end a series of debates he proposed. "Host Bill Goodman will moderate the debate and ask questions, and viewers will be allowed to call in with their questions, said Tim Bischoff, a spokesman for the state's educational television network," reports Joseph Gerth of The Courier-Journal. "Josh Holmes, an adviser to McConnell, said that the campaign is in discussions about other potential debates but has nothing to announce at this time." Grimes campaign manager Jonathan Hurst said their campaign hopes for "several more debates."
• Bischoff said Libertarian Party candidate David Patterson did not meet the criteria that the network said must be met by Aug. 15, including acceptance of at least $100,000 in campaign contributions and getting at least 10 percent support in an independent, professional poll.
• The National Rifle Association has sent a mailer to Kentucky residents that says,"McConnell will stop the Obama/Bloomberg Gun Control agenda . . . the biggest threat to your Second Amendment rights in Obama's final years in office. ' of President Obama and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg." Kevin Willis of WKYU-FM in Bowling Green notes that the mailer was sent shortly after it was revealed that McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, is on the board of a charity created by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
  
  
• McConnell "might have kept in mind his wife’s membership on boards of a couple of organizations that aren’t enamored of coal before he based his case against Alison Lundergan Grimes on her association with some who also don’t love coal," writes Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News Service. McConnell now must "defend his own association through his wife’s involvement on the boards of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Wells Fargo." Meanwhile, Grimes's allies in the legislature "squirm as the Kentucky Coal Association and its president, Bill Bissett, come to McConnell’s defense time and again. After years of kowtowing to King Coal, no matter how outrageous some of its excesses, they clearly have no leverage over KCA, which supposedly doesn’t endorse candidates — but clearly supports McConnell over Grimes."
• McConnell introduced legislation that addresses infants born on opiates and maternal addiction, a problem that is increasing in Kentucky. He said in a press release that the bill would "help identify and disseminate recommendations for preventing and treating maternal addiction so that we can reduce the number of infants born dependent on opiates and other drugs," and "encourage the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with states to improve the availability and quality of research data to help them respond more effectively to this public health epidemic."
• Edmund Shelby, editor of The Beattyville Enterprise, wrote a commentary for The Courier-Journal standing by his article in April on McConnell's statements about jobs, a prime focus of attacks by the Grimes and her allies. Shelby had asked McConnell basic questions in a brief interview before a luncheon. When Shelby asked the senator what he was going to do to bring jobs to Lee County, an off-guard McConnell said, "Economic development is a Frankfort issue. That is not my job. It is the primary responsibility of the state Commerce Cabinet." McConnell added that he was fighting the Obama administration's proposed restrictions on coal, and Shelby reported that, too. McConnell claimed Shelby quoted him out of context, but Shelby said the context was very clear: "I firmly believe that Sen. McConnell committed the cardinal sin of all career politicians: He gave an honest answer to a journalist’s question."

Roundup: Post analyst says GOP likelier to gain Senate, but McConnell race Dems' top pickup chance

Rounding up the weekend coverage and commentary, and more recent items:

• Mitch McConnell's main positive argument for his re-election, that he would become Senate majority leader, gets a boost from Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post, who writes that a Republican takeover is now "a better than 50-50 proposition." But he also writes that the Kentucky race, not an open seat in Georgia, "seems the better opportunity" for Democrats to take a Republican seat, given "McConnell’s middling poll numbers and the able campaign being run by state Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Polling gives McConnell a slight edge, but even his most ardent supporters acknowledge that his vote ceiling is somewhere between 51 and 52 percent." But he said a McConnell loss "looks possible — but not probable — at the moment."
• In his fortnightly column in The Courier-Journal, Al Cross (publisher of this blog) analyzes the week that began with the Fancy Farm Picnic, saying "Grimes needed a win at Fancy Farm, and she got it;" looks at her ad on women's issues and McConnell's response ad, featuring his wife, Elaine Chao; notes stories that could turn the race more personal; and ends with the candidates' battle for the East Kentucky Coal Field, where the percentage of uninsured people has dropped to record low levels but "Grimes still seems scared to come close to anything associated with Obama, much less Obamacare."
• The candidates' Eastern Kentucky crowds looked identical but had sharply divergent views, writes Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News Service: Grimes supporters "see an American society built by the middle class, a middle class they believe should always be expanding. But they see that dream faltering as the rules now seem stacked against them by rich and malevolent powers which get richer and richer at the expense of hard-working families whose incomes are shrinking. They see the coal economy by which many escaped poverty, and many more hope to, crumbling beneath them and their region." McConnell backers "are just as alarmed by the demise of coal in Eastern Kentucky. . . . To these folks, outside forces, alien, socialist forces, people who don’t like us, are malevolently working to destroy our way of life."
• Catching up with the weekly papers: The Record of Leitchfield reported last week that Grimes, on her way to Fancy Farm, stopped at Rough River Dam State Resort Park and got a little rough, telling supporters she was wearing "butt-kicking boots—the boots I’m gonna wear to kick Mitch McConnell’s butt out of his Senate seat."

Media roundup: Fancy Farm coverage from local, state and national news media, including the selfie

The Fancy Farm Picnic drew a record crowd, but most of those at the speaking had their minds made up. Many more undecided or persuadable voters were reached by the KET broadcast, which was picked up by C-SPAN, and news coverage of such events can be influential. Here's what local, state and national news media saw and emphasized:

• "A record crowd descended on the grounds of St. Jerome Catholic Church to take part in the Fancy Farm Picnic's rowdy political specatcle, which may turn our to be the closest voters come to seeing Republican Mitch McConnell and challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes debate each other," writes Laurel Black of The Paducah Sun (behind a paywall).
• The candidates "met Saturday for the first time in a year," write Jim Carroll and Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal. "Democrat Grimes hammered on Republican McConnell, listing a series of her contrasting policy positions and urging the crowd to respond that 'Mitch McConnell doesn't care' on each one. McConnell, for his part, took shots at Grimes and a series of gaffes she and her campaign have made over the past year, including a recent statement that the Democrat's campaign confused Israel's missile defense system with efforts to stop terrorists from tunneling into Israel."
• Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports, "Grimes blasted McConnell as having gone Washington, pushing the refrain that instead of District of Columbia, D.C. stands for 'doesn't care.' . . . McConnell and [Sen. Rand] Paul responded, hammering the message that a vote for Grimes is a vote for the agenda of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama.
• "McConnell and Grimes put some snark of their own in their usual campaign rhetoric — and sat just a few feet away from each other in a rare joint appearance," reports Adam Beam of The Associated Press. "So far, their expensive campaign has been waged mostly through TV ads and news releases."
• 
  "While this year’s political speaking at St. Jerome Parish began with a selfie (left), it quickly returned to its 19th century roots of zingers and criticism between the U.S. Senate candidates, their allies and a record-breaking crowd," Ryan Alessi reports for cn|2's "Pure Politics." Gov. Steve Beshear's photo of himself with 1996 Senate-race foe McConnell "wasn’t technically a prop, which is banned by the speaking event organizers. But it was close."
• Grimes and McConnell "made it clear what each thinks is the ticket to victory this November," reports Ronnie Ellis of Community Newspaper Holdings. The candidates "delivered stem-winders in the best tradition of Fancy Farm political speeches."
• "While the evenly divided partisans still had fun and exercised their lungs and vocal chords abundantly with cheers, jeers and boos, it wasn’t the near-nasty atmosphere of some recent Fancy Farm political events," Ellis also reports. “I believe we got through to them,” said state Supreme Court Justice Bill Cunningham, who as emcee urged the crowd to "leave your bad manners at home."
• "At a picnic that is known for it's [sic] one-liners, this year's gathering at Fancy Farm was full of them," writes Robert Bradfield of Paducah's WPSD-TV.
• At its core, Fancy Farm is a fundraising picnic for St. Jerome Catholic Church. While the food is great, the real feast is the politics," reports Lawrence Smith of Louisville's WDRB-TV.
• Trip Gabriel of The New York Times reports, "The center of the political universe on Saturday was a town in far western Kentucky, where a pivotal and closely followed Senate race was fought in a metal farm shed, on a brick stage with a white picket fence meant to suggest a rural front porch. But instead of genial and civil banter, there was an exchange of low blows and political zingers . . . "
• After a Fancy Farm dateline, Patrick O'Connor of The Wall Street Journal writes, "This hamlet in Western Kentucky played host Saturday to candidates in the nation's marquee Senate election fight, who framed the race as a choice between experience and change. . . . Their words took on new urgency in this rarefied setting, with the Democrat highlighting her youth and Mr. McConnell highlighting his status as the top Republican in the Senate, as well as what it would mean for Kentucky if he becomes majority leader."
• Politico's James Hohmann writes, "In the most expensive and highest-profile Senate race of the year, not to mention the tightest in the polls, both sides tried Saturday to frame the race going into the final three months before Election Day. . . . With people in the crowd holding signs that said “Grimes = Obama,” the Democrat mentioned Obama just once, at the end of her speech." UPDATE: at 11 p.m. Sunday, "Fancy Farm" was still trending No. 6 on Politico.
• "The Senate’s most important campaign devolved into a literal shouting match Saturday," reports Paul Kane of The Washington Post. "The candidates and their surrogates traded insults as thousands of liberal and conservative activists cheered and jeered their every word, despite a heavenly plea for comity from the local archbishop. . . . The unusual nature of Fancy Farm — something akin to each party holding a convention in the same open-air barn — compels speakers to boil down their pitch to the most partisan parts to try to win the loudest cheers from their activist supporters."
• Away from the speakers' stand, "'Honest' Gil Fulbright, the huckster-in-chief in this year's U.S. Senate race, launched his satiric foray into Kentucky politics Saturday, promising crowds at Fancy Farm that he will betray voters to monied interest groups — and do it with absolute transparency," reports Mike Wynn of The Courier-Journal. "The faux candidate, who acknowledges that 'money talks and I listen,' said he decided to crash the 2014 Senate race . . . after learning it could cost more than $100 million." (C-J Photo by Sam Upshaw Jr.)
• Eliot Nelson writes on The Huffington Post, "Per tradition, the shed where the speeches take place is divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans. What results is like nothing else in American politics –- think Prime Minister’s Questions, but with a lot more people in overalls."
• Sam Youngman, freelancing for The Daily Beast today, writes that Grimes "needed a strong showing Saturday, and she got it. But one reason McConnell is ahead and still favored to win this race is that both he and the outside groups supporting him have run a relentless campaign to tie coal and President Barack Obama's unpopularity (the Bluegrass Poll released last week showed the president at 28 percent favorable) to Grimes. . . . As McConnell geared up to rail against President Barack Obama and his 'Kentucky candidate' ... he began by noting that, "Fancy Farm is fun, but there are serious problems facing our country.' 'YOU!' someone in the crowd shouted for all to hear. . . . 'The Gong Show' meets 'Hee Haw' with The New York Times in the front row as the candidates' gaffes take human form."

See other coverage worth noting? Email al.cross@uky.edu.

Grimes keeps hammering McConnell on jobs remark, but ads don't tell the whole story, fact-checkers say

By Megan Ingros and Al Cross

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The defining moment of Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race, as Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes would have it, was Sen. Mitch McConnell’s April 18 comment to a weekly newspaper in Lee County that bringing jobs there “is not my job.”

The remark has fueled attack ads from Grimes and responses from McConnell, the latest round this month. Several fact checkers have said it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Grimes began the exchanges in early June, with a 60-second radio ad that mainly attacked President Obama’s anti-coal regulations but also mentioned McConnell’s comment to The Beattyville Enterprise.

Politifact, the fact-checking service of the Tampa Bay Times, found the charge “half true,” saying that it had no reason to doubt the newspaper, but noting that “McConnell also told the paper that he has a responsibility to protect jobs, and that some of his work in Congress has led to job creation in Kentucky. In addition, McConnell’s legislative record shows a concern for local employment.”

In early July, national Democrats' Senate Majority PAC released a television attack ad on McConnell in which Kentucky residents say jobs should be a top priority for a senator, and express dismay at McConnell’s remark.

Grimes attacked again on July 22 with a TV ad featuring unemployed coal miner David Stanley, who says: “Mr. McConnell, in the last two years, we’ve lost almost half of our coal jobs in Eastern Kentucky. Why’d you say it’s not your job to bring jobs to Kentucky?” As Grimes and Stanley wait for an answer that never comes, an image of the Beattyville newspaper story appears on the screen. Grimes says job growth will be her top priority if elected.

Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Bissett defended McConnell, telling the Lexington Herald-Leader that it was “unfair and untrue” to blame him for the loss of those jobs.

Nevertheless, McConnell released an ad one day later, saying he “saved” a Louisville company with a bill he got passed in 2012 “That law imposes duties on imported foreign products that receive subsidies from communist governments,” reports Louisville’s WDRB-TV.  Joe Arnold of Louisville's WHAS-TV reported, “Our check of the legislative record confirms the ad is accurate.”

Arnold said of Grimes’s ad, “The question itself is questionable,” because she extends the remark to apply to jobs in Kentucky, not Lee County, and for the same reasons Politifact judged the radio ad to be half-true.

Grimes responded with a statement claiming that “Under McConnell, Kentucky has lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs, while he has spent years supporting tax breaks that encourage companies to ship good Kentucky overseas.” The campaign also said McConnell had not stood up to China’s currency manipulations, and it issued a web ad suggesting that McConnell cared more about creating jobs in China than in the U.S.

Beattyville Enterprise Editor Edmund Shelby stood by his article in a statement on June 24: “There is no way that was taken out of context and his campaign’s claim that it was lost in translation is ridiculous because we were both speaking in English. He committed the cardinal sin of any career politician: He gave a straight answer to a straight question.”

The entire story in The Beattyville Enterprise

McConnell has said Shelby quoted him out of context. The immediate context, as Shelby wrote it, was: “McConnell was asked by The Beattyville Enterprise what he was going to do to bring jobs to Lee County.” He quoted McConnell as replying, “Economic development is a Frankfort issue. That is not my job. it is the primary responsibility of the state Commerce Cabinet,” the former name of the Cabinet for Economic Development.

Shelby asked McConnell about public-works projects, and the senator said he was interested in those, but added, “Most comes from the state, though.” Shelby also wrote, “He did say that he is responsible for protecting jobs by ‘pushing back’ against the Obama administration’s restrictions on the coal industry.” 

The most detailed analysis of the controversy was published Friday, July 25 by FactCheck.org, a service of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. In a 1,700-word story, writer Robert Farley detailed the progression of the controversy and concluded, “McConnell’s statements make clear that he sees job creation as part of his job description.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 3 roundup: Grimes gets mostly modest coverage in east; McConnell blames Obama for gridlock

Covering the coverage . . .

• Alison Lundergan Grimes campaigned yesterday in Whitley, Knox and Bell counties. Here's coverage from WYMT-TV in Hazard. The Corbin Times-Tribune, which said it was notified late of the event, published a photo and caption. The Barbourville Mountain Advocate posted a short story and several pictures. No coverage was found in the Middlesboro Daily News.
• Today Grimes stopped in five counties, including Perry, where the Hazard Herald's Amelia Holliday reported on the candidate's talk with a small-business owner and posted several pictures. Other stops were in Clay, Leslie, Knott and Powell counties. Only WYMT and the Lexington Herald-Leader covered Grimes' new emphasis on coal-mine safety (see next post). The TV station's opening line was that Grimes was "trying to distance herself from Washington Democrats," and the Herald-Leader story began by saying Grimes acted "With signs pointing to a potentially rocky road ahead in coal country."
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/07/03/3321946/grimes-focuses-on-miner-safety.html?sp=/99/322/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy
• The Courier-Journal put Sen. Mitch McConnell on the spot in its story about the impending lack of money in the federal Highway Trust Fund, which has promoted Kentucky to delay several road projects. McConnell spokesman Robert Steurer said his boss “looks forward to the full Senate addressing this important extension once [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid brings the issue to the Senate floor for consideration.”
• McConnell told a gathering of civic groups in Bardstown that President Obama is primarily to blame for gridlock in Washington because “He is not an active, engaged CEO like Reagan was and like Clinton was. And he is going to have to come in a different direction in order to achieve things in the political center.” Randy Patrick's Kentucky Standard story is here.