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Asked what would happen to Kynect if the law were repealed, he said, “The state exchange can continue it if they want to.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.

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."

In hidden-camera videos, Grimes supporters undercut her coal stand; campaign says they're not on staff

By Anthony Pendleton
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes is the latest target of undercover video operator James O’Keefe, who has made a name for himself by going after Democrats and liberal activists.

On Monday, O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action released a hidden-camera video of Grimes campaign supporters that undercut Grimes’ strong advocacy of the troubled coal industry. Her campaign said none of the people are on its payroll.

In the nearly five-minute long video, the Grimes supporters has to say she supports coal because, as Juanita Rodriguez said, “In Kentucky, if you don’t support the coal industry, you’re dead – politically.” Rodriguez adds that politics is “a lying game, unfortunately.” The video identifies her as an “operative” of the Warren County Democratic Party in Bowling Green.

Former state auditor Crit Luallen is shown saying that Grimes has “just gotta do what she’s gotta do to get elected.” Luallen also says “Obama’s regulatory policies have had the impact totally restricting what coal can do.” She also suggests that the issue shouldn't be so big: “Between the market forces and what he’s already done, this is not like a big hook hanging over our heads.”

In a telephone interview, Luallen said, “It's my understanding that the campaign has said no one in that video had been authorized to speak for her. They were volunteers, they were activists, none of them were paid staff.” She added, “I deeply resent being secretly recorded. And this is a kind of underhanded tactic that is unnecessary in the campaign environment and doesn't serve the positive public discourse that needs to happen in the campaign.”

Luallen said in an email to the Bowling Green Daily News, “I’ve known Alison a long time and I know she cares deeply about coal miners, their families and their futures.”

Ziya Smallens, whom the video identifies as a field organizer at a “Louisville Democratic office,” says in the video, “You can’t be a statewide politician and condemn coal. You can’t. You’re not gonna win.”

O’Keefe says in the video that he sent his “reporters into the Grimes campaign,” and to “Grimes campaign offices across the state,” but most if not all of the locations appear to be offices of the Democratic Party, not the Grimes campaign.

Asked about that in an interview, O'Keefe said, "That's where her campaign activities are carried out, were in these offices. So whether they're staffers or campaign workers or officials associated with the campaign - that's sorta why we used that language."

In an email, Grimes campaign press secretary Charly Norton said, “None of the individuals in the video are on our staff.”

However, it appears Smallens may have been a member of the Grimes campaign in the past. On Tuesday, his LinkedIn profile said he was a field organizer for the campaign. One of the duties Smallens listed was being in charge of or helping with “training volunteers to organize their own communities.”

O’Keefe said in a telephone interview that he described Smallens as a field organizer because “they characterized that they were working for the campaign, in the capacity as field organizer.”

On Wednesday, Smallens’s LinkedIn profile had been updated and all mentions of the Grimes campaign had been removed. Less than an hour after an email was sent to Smallens seeking comment for this story, his profile had been completely deleted.

No payments to Smallens or another person the video identifies as a “Grimes field organizer,” Chase Sanders, are listed in payments made by the Grimes campaign in its reports through June 30. Smallens’ LinkedIn profile said he started work in June. Another campaign-spending report, for the third quarter, is due Oct. 15.

On Tuesday, Project Veritas Action released a second video, showing Grimes campaign donor Niko Elmaleh of New York City in a bar, saying of the coal indstry that Grimes will “[expletive] ‘em as soon as she gets elected.”

After the release of the first video on Monday, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s campaign spokeswoman, Allison Moore, said in a press release, “The fact Grimes has not denounced campaign staffers who say she’s anti-coal is just the latest proof that Obama’s Kentucky candidate is no more interested in defending this industry than she was the day she lied about raising the subject at a Harry Reid fundraiser.”

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, is the Senate majority leader. In 2008, he said “Coal makes us sick.” In June, Grimes said she would defend the industry at a private fundraiser Reid sponsored for her, but in her 11-minute speech, she never said the word “coal.” She said afterward that she raised the issue with Reid privately.

Grimes has said that unlike McConnell, she believes in global warming and climate change, "but I think that we have to address, especially, leaving this world in a better place in a balanced manner. We’ve got to keep the jobs that we have here in this state, especially our good coal jobs, fight for them. But we have to diversify our economies in Eastern and Western Kentucky."

On Wednesday morning, after the release of the second video, the Republican Party of Kentucky released a statement calling on Grimes to return the money her campaign received from Elmaleh. He donated $2,600 – the maximum amount for a single election – in June.

O’Keefe says in the video that it is “the beginning of a nationwide undercover investigation into the upcoming election.”

O’Keefe is the head of Project Veritas Action – a non-profit “social welfare organization” organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the main requirement to be classified as a 501(c)(4) is to “operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community.” That has been interpreted to mean that such groups are within the law if they spend half or less of their money on politics.

O’Keefe first gained fame, and is mainly known, for a series of hidden-camera videos released in 2009 that helped to bring down the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. In those videos, ACORN employees offer advice to O’Keefe and Giles on how to evade tax laws. The video gained attention because it showed O”Keefe and Giles dressed as a pimp and prostitute in certain parts. It was discovered nearly a year later that the two were not in costume in the ACORN offices as originally thought.

Although it took nearly a year to catch O’Keefe’s deceitful conduct the first time, it took less than a day the second time. O’Keefe and three others were arrested by the FBI in January 2010 for breaking into Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. All four were initially charged with “entering federal property under false pretenses and with the intent of committing a felony.” Their sentences were dropped to misdemeanors; O’Keefe served three years of probation and 100 hours of community service.

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

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."

Grimes' spending with father's firms questioned; McConnell ally starts 'death tax' ad as forum nears

Setting the stage for the candidates' first true face-to-face exchange, coming Wednesday:

• Alison Lundergan Grimes has been rolling around Kentucky in a 45-foot tour bus, attending rallies and taking photos next to the vehicle. "Her father’s company acquired the bus just as the campaign got underway last year — and is renting it to his daughter for a fraction of what other companies would typically charge," reports Manu Raju of Politico. "Grimes paid less than $11,000 through June to rent the bus for at least 24 days, amounting to about $456 per day. Officials at four bus companies said they typically charge $1,500 to $2,000 a day to rent a similarly sized bus,"  Raju reports. McConnell's campaign reported it spent at least $2,200 a day to rent a bus of roughly the same size. "The spending highlights the central role" Grimes's father, caterer Jerry Lundergan, "is playing in his daughter’s bid to unseat McConnell," Raju writes, reporting his companies have received $35,000 from the campaign. According to legal experts, the difference between what the company charges "and the fair market value of the bus rental could be considered an illegal in-kind contribution. . . . The Grimes campaign disputes that it is paying less than the fair market value for the bus, saying it went above and beyond to ensure that its payments reflect comparable prices of other similar vehicles." For a video report from Politico, click here.
• The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition launched a new TV ad, highlighting the effect of the estate tax on farmers in Kentucky. KOC senior adviser Scott Jennings said, "With the Kentucky State Fair underway and farmers from around Kentucky gathering in Louisville to celebrate our state’s rich agriculture heritage, we thought it was a prime opportunity to once again educate citizens on the devastating effect of the death tax and the need to join Senator McConnell’s efforts to repeal it."

McConnell started a new ad responding to Grimes's ad that starts out with an attack on his wealth, saying it is an attack on his wife, Elaine Chao, because it is based on "his wife's inheritance after his mother died." A release from McConnell's campaign last week, making similar points, cited a Fortune magazine story that said Chao's father "delivered the bulk of the couple's wealth in a 2008 gift valued between $5 million and $25 million," one of the ranges in which such assets are reported on Senate personal financial disclosure forms. The gift was a bequest following the death of Chao's mother.

The candidates meet at 2 p.m. today at Kentucky Farm Bureau headquarters in Louisville for the federation's "Measure the Candidates" forum, their first true back-and-forth discussion. They will answer a series of questions on agriculture and rural issues, and the format allows them to respond to each other. The forum is open to Farm Bureau officers, selected staff and the news media but will be videostreamed live at www.kyfb.com/livestream<http://www.kyfb.com/livestream.

One topic of discussion at the forum will be the Republican's absences from meetings of the Senate Agriculture Committee, writes Alexandra Jaffe of The Hill, noting "McConnell’s public schedule reveals many times when he’s missed hearings but has still managed to make time for media appearances or meetings on issues far removed from Kentucky’s farmers." UPDATE: Grimes posted a 30-second web ad on the issue.

Grimes's office says guns-and-gay rights Libertarian candidate filed enough signatures to get on ballot

Libertarian David Patterson filed a nominating petition with more than enough signatures Monday to get on the Nov. 4 ballot for the U.S. Senate, adding a dose of uncertainty to the close race.

Patterson, a Harrodsburg police officer who openly carries a gun while off duty, "turned in more than 9,100 signatures to the secretary of state's office," run by Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, reports Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "At least 5,000 valid signatures of registered voters are needed to get on the Nov. 4 ballot. Grimes' office took about two hours Monday afternoon to determine that Patterson had provided an adequate number of valid signatures." The filing deadline for third-party and independent candidates is Tuesday.

In the Bluegrass Poll taken in July, Patterson drew 7 percent of the vote, apparently equally from Grimes and Sen. Mitch McConnell. He "does best among younger voters and independents along with those who might change their mind, at 18 percent," notes Phillip Bailey of Louisvile's WFPL.

On his campaign home page, Patterson, 43, says "Our government has overstepped it's [sic] bounds and has compromised our way of life. . . . My goal is to maximize individual liberty, by curbing government interference into your personal daily life. I will accomplish this by working with other elected officials in voting to eliminate wasteful government spending, to consolidate redundant government functions, and to phase out government departments and programs that have outlived their usefulness. I will fight for us to allow Kentucky to determine its own future, and not have the Federal government mandate the details of our lives. And I will protect our civil liberties as Kentuckians, Americans, and individuals."

Other pages on the site also illustrate how Patterson might draw from both major candidates. On the biographical page, Patterson calls himself "an outspoken activist for equal rights for minorities and LGBT persons, and for his strong opposition on violence against women and children." His platform page says he opposes limits on civil liablity, a position held by most Democrats, and favors replacing the income tax with a sales tax, an idea favored by many Republicans. His regional issues page mentions only ideas for the Brent Spence Bridge in Northern Kentucky.

Clinton, in Lexington and Hazard, tries to put distance between Grimes and Obama

By Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Courier-Journal photo by Jonathan Palmer

Former President Bill Clinton subtly tried to put some distance between President Obama and Alison Lundergan Grimes as he campaigned with her in a region where she probably needs to do better to defeat Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Clinton reminded an overflow crowd of more than 800 in Hazard that the Nov. 4 election is for a six-year term, but McConnell "wants you to make it a protest on a two-year term. That doesn't make any sense, does it? If I was hiring somebody for a six-year job, I believe I would think about what was best for me over the next six years." He made the same point earlier, at a Grimes fund-raiser in Lexington, saying "That man must think Kentucky has stopped teaching arithmetic."

Later in his Hazard speech, Clinton declared, "We have not done anything meaningful for rural America since the New Markets Tax Credit" in 1999, when he last visited Hazard. He said likewise in Lexington. President Obama would likely disagree; last month the White House announced creation of a $10 billion investment fund for rural development, and the administration has recently taken steps to make parts of Eastern Kentucky more eligible for federal aid.

Clinton emphasized jobs and economic inequality in Hazard, a key town in a region hit hard by decline of the Central Appalachian coal industry.

"One candidate believes it's is about jobs and incomes," he said of the race. "The other believes a senator has no business trying to create jobs." That is based on a comment McConnell made in April to the editor of the Beattyville Enterprise, whose question he said he misunderstood.

Clinton said "all the benefits" of current economic growth "are going to people at the top of the ladder. That's the big issue in America, that's the big issue in Kentucky."

Polls have shown a majority of Kentuckians rank jobs as their top concern, but in Eastern Kentucky the huge loss of coal jobs has made Obama's anti-coal policies the focus of McConnell's campaign.

Clinton urged the crowd to stop and think about "well-produced" TV ads that he said are designed to make viewers "vote in anger instead of in love." Then he said he had handled black-lung claims for miners in Arkansas, and "It was one of the things in my long life I'm most proud of," because he won a change in administrative law from two federal judges appointed by each party.

In Lexington, he said the judges "saw those coal miners as people. They looked at the facts of the law. They didn't turn their brains off in order to prove how pure they were, to somebody, ideologically."

In his most direct attack on the incumbent, Clinton said in Lexington, "If Senator McConnell had really, really wanted to get an infrastructure bank, which would help Eastern Kentucky enormously, opening it up physically with better roads, opening it up virtually with better download speeds, he could have gotten it. We could have gotten a lot of things. But if your goal is just to make the other side look bad, you don't get anything done. Cooperation works, and constant conflict is a dead-bang loser."

At Hazard, United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts gave a fiery speech introducing Grimes, who said "I am the only pro-coal candidate in this race," despite McConnell's fights against environmental regulations imposed on the industry. Applying another label, she also said, "I am a Clinton Democrat."

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.

June 20 roundup: Candidates offer ways to rebuild a major bridge, but neither idea is likely to become law

The biggest issue in Northern Kentucky took center stage in the race today:

Kentucky Enquirer photo by Patrick Reddy

• Sen. Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan Grimes "dueled over the Brent Spence Bridge," an aging, outdated span that carries Interstates 75 and 71 across the Ohio River from Covington to Cincinnati, Scott Wartman of The Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Grimes has rejected the idea of tolls to finance a new bridge; just before a McConnell press conference on the issue today, she proposed getting the money "by closing tax loopholes that benefit millionaires and billionaires" and other tax breaks. McConnell proposed to get funding by repealing the law that requires union-influenced wages to be paid on federal projects. Neither idea can become law, panelists on KET's "Comment on Kentucky" said tonight. The Grimes campaign called McConnell's plan "a gimmick," said he had done nothing about the bridge during his nearly 30 years in the Senate, and noted that he said earlier this year the project was up to Kentucky and Ohio. For a more detailed report and video from Jacqueline Pitts of cn|2, click here.
• The American Federation of Government Employees endorsed Grimes. Last week, two locals of the union, in heavily Republican southeastern Kentucky, endorsed McConnell.
• Grimes "strains to distance herself from Washington, President Obama and all the insidery politics condemned by folks outside the Beltway," write Al Kamen and Colby Itkowitz of The Washington Post, but defeating McConnell "requires a lot of money, so a candidate can’t afford to be too choosy about whose checks she cashes — even if they’re bound to raise a few eyebrows back home," so next week Grimes is set to attend a cocktail-party fundraiser in Manhattan hosted by producer Harvey Weinstein and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, who "have donated heavily to PACs working to unseat McConnell, and have given the max contributions to Grimes . . . the 2014 'it' girl. Although the Democrats’ hold on the Senate is tenuous, ousting the would-be majority leader would be quite the coup for the party."
• The race ranks No. 7 among the 12 that The Washington Post says will decide control of the Senate: "Republicans are feeling more confident about McConnell's chances following the Republican leader's convincing primary victory last month and their sense that the GOP is quickly uniting behind him. And, President Obama didn't do Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes any favors with his announcement on power plants earlier this month. But, as we have written in this space, McConnell's numbers suggest his vote ceiling is very low. And, in a cycle where they have very few opportunities, Democrats will pour everything they have into this one." The only other Republican-held seat among the 12 is the open seat in Georgia.