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."

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.

MoveOn.org ad attacks McConnell for Koch remarks; his camp contrasts Jerry Lundergan's Obama views

MoveOn.org, which says it "campaigns for progressive change," has started advertising in Kentucky's U.S. Senate race, with a 30-second spot about Sen. Mitch McConnell's remarks to a June meeting of big Republican funders hosted by brothers Charles and David Koch. The Grimes campaign has a 50-second web ad based on the remarks, touching more on the substantive issues at the end of the recording. UPDATE, Sept. 1: A second web ad came out Sunday.


Today, McConnell's campaign issued a press release saying the "Grimes camp" had undergone "a campaign conversion" on President Obama, contrasting the past favorable statements about the nation's top Democrat by Alison Grimes's father, Jerry Lundergan, with a quote from him in today's New York Times: “My daughter has never had a conversation with Barack Obama and probably never will, unless he wants to help Kentucky.” The release has no quotes from Grimes, but the Times story had one: “Kentuckians know how to do arithmetic, and they realize that the president has two more years left on his term and we are electing a senator for the next six.”

Grimes set the tone with attack, but McConnell handled the issues better at Farm Bureau forum

Our story on the Kentucky Farm Bureau forum has been delayed by the storm and lack of electricity at our student reporter's place in Lexington, but the reviews on today's first true exchange between the major candidates are coming in.

"Kentucky's U.S. Senate candidates had a hard time talking about farming without slinging mud," report Adam Beam and Bruce Schreiner of The Associated Press. "Grimes set the tone early by attacking McConnell in her opening statement for his prolonged absences from the Senate Agriculture Committee. . . . The Senate's top-ranking Republican quickly shot back at the forum that the farm bill he eventually helped pass was a good deal but 'It's probably not as good a deal as a $400 a day tour bus,' a reference to the campaign bus Grimes rented from her father's company that the McConnell campaign has said could be a potential illegal campaign gift. McConnell also tried to blunt the criticism for missing committee meetings. He told reporters afterward: "I think she doesn't really understand the legislative process. If you're the leader of one of the parties, you have more consequential things to do than simply go to hearings."

"McConnell presented himself as the real 'change agent' in the Kentucky Senate race on Wednesday, arguing in a candidate forum that ... Grimes actually represents 'the status quo.' Grimes, meanwhile, said it is time to put the minority leader -out to pasture' after 30 years in the Senate, framing the election as a choice between the past and the future," reports James Hohmann of Politico Pro (behind a paywall). "McConnell, 72, looked relaxed and came across as well-versed in agricultural issues — dropping a lot of Washington-type jargon and referring to specific provisions in bills to showcase his experience.

Grimes, 35, sounded rehearsed, her answers hewing closely to talking points. The first-term secretary of state mispronounced the legislative word 'omnibus' and overly gestured with her hands, a distracting nervous tick [sic]. McConnell stayed seated at a conference table as he fielded questions, and Grimes answered from behind a podium." Actually, it was a lectern, but Americans seem to have renamed the thing.

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."

McConnell calls Grimes ad an attack on Chao; could set up attack on Lundergan; camps talk debates

The weekend conversation is mainly about Alison Lundergan Grimes's new TV spot:

• Grimes "has set aside her folksy, light-hearted television ad series 'Questions for Mitch' in favor of a traditional attack ad, as recent polls show her losing ground in a tight race with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell," writes Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "McConnell's campaign labeled the ad an attack on the senator's wife, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, although the ad never makes a direct reference to Chao. Because the ad mentions McConnell's personal wealth, the majority of which was inherited from Chao's family, the McConnell campaign countered that it represented another attack on Chao." The ad says McConnell has become a multi-millionaire in public office; Youngman notes, "The bulk of McConnell's wealth comes from a gift Chao's father, an immigrant-turned-shipping-magnate, gave the couple and an inheritance she received after her mother died in 2007."
• The ad "does try to infer that there might be some misbehavior or some misuse of his position," Kentucky Gazette Editor Laura Cullen Glasscock said on KET's "Comment on Kentucky" Friday night. (She meant "imply," not "infer," which is what viewers may do.) Panelist Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News said, "The underlying thing they want to get across is that he has become a creature of Washington and has lost touch with hard-working, blue-collar Kentuckians." Glasscock added, " . . . that he's not one of us, doesn't represent the citizen any more."
• Ellis said the McConnell campaign's response is another indication that it may make an issue of Grimes's father, former state Democratic chair Jerry Lundergan. He noted that McConnell told Lana Bellamy of CHNI's Ashland Daily Independent, "If Jerry Lundergan were my father I'd be careful about bringing family into this." Noting Lundergan's 1987 conviction, for doing business with the state while a state legislator, which was overturned because it was later ruled a misdemeanor and the statute of limitations had run, Ellis said, "I think there's a very good chance were going to see that, then Grimes could respond at Chao." WHAS-TV's Joe Arnold noted that such attacks could be done by allied groups that are legally required to act independently of the campaigns.
• Also on "Comment," Arnold reported that the McConnell and Grimes campaigns have had their first "face to face meeting" to discuss debates. "Comment" airs again at 12:30 p.m. ET Sunday, and Monday on KET KY at 8 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. ET.

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  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/15/3381856/alison-lundergan-grimes-shifts.html?sp=/99/322/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy