McConnell ad lauds deals; he touts bill for veterans, topic of ad targeting him; Grimes ad gets low mark

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

• Sen. Mitch McConnell has started a new TV commercial touting his negotiation of budget agreements as Senate minority leader, with a series of laudatory remarks from a wide range of sources, including liberal commentator Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball."
  
• McConnell, who is being attacked in a TV ad for not supporting a bill to improve veterans' benefits, announced that a bill he co-sponsored to help increase their cost-of-living adjustments has passed the Senate. A press release said he was one of 15 co-sponsors, and voted recently against a reduction in COLAs that was authorized in the December 2013 budget agreement. "He later introduced a measure to reinstate this full benefit and voted for legislation enacted in February 2014 that reinstated the full COLA for all military retirees," the release said.
• Politifact found more fault with a long-running Grimes ad, this time with its assertion that McConnell voted "three times for corporate tax breaks that sent jobs overseas." The fact-checking service of the Tampa Bay Times says the ad is "mostly false" because tax law allowing deductions for business moving expenses does not specifically promote outsourcing, and McConnell cast three procedural votes that blocked bills that "would have given a tax benefit to companies that insource jobs and denied an already-existing tax break to companies that outsource them."
• Grimes criticized McConnell for blocking a proposed constitutional amendment that "would allow Congress and state lawmakers to override recent Supreme Court decisions that have struck down campaign-finance laws," as described by Politico. In a press release, Grimes said "Sen. McConnell remains more concerned about the whims of millionaires and billionaires than Kentuckians struggling to make ends meet. My opponent shamefully admits that the 'worst day' of his political life was not the VA scandal or the Great Recession that saw 118,000 Kentuckians lose their jobs, but rather when Congress decided to limit the money his wealthy friends could give him for re-election."
• Grimes issued another release saying McConnell had a bad week; among the examples were his refusal to disavow the remarks of a fellow speaker at the Koch brothers event in June, who called the minimum wage fascist and unemployed people lazy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., mentioned the remarks in a speech during the debate on the constitutional amendment.
• The remarks are the focus of a new TV ad attacking McConnell, being run by the liberal group MoveOn.org.
• Grimes has a new web ad, in which voters say "Hey, Mitch," and ask questions about McConnell's voting record.
• On KET's "Comment on Kentucky," WDRB's Lawrence Smith said Grimes released an internal poll to "calm the nerves" of contributors and "blunt momentum McConnell seems to have."
• The Kentucky Senate race is no longer in the list of "Top 10 Senate Takeovers" on NBC News' "First Read." It was No. 8 in mid-July. Could have somethign to do with these trend lines of poll averages as drawn by Real Clear Politics:

June 17 roundup: Ad targets Grimes for being mum on coal at Reid event; she issues web video on jobs, coal

Coal continues to dominate news of the race:

• The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, a committee supporting Sen. Mitch McConnell, started the "first ad lashing Alison Lundergan Grimes’ secretly taped remarks at a fundraiser with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid," buying $575,000 in air and cable time for it, Politico reports. Louisville's WHAS-11 provides the ad, which accuses her of lying because she said she would use the event to advocate Kentucky's coal interests. A tape obtained by Politico showed that she did not; she said she discussed coal issues with Reid while in Washington. Politico reports that the McConnell campaign is planning similar advertising. A Grimes aide told Politico that the group's ads have been flawed: “Same group, same type of ad, still false.”
• Grimes released a 2-minute, 41-second web video highlighting McConnell's statement that it is not his job to bring employment to Lee County and a Republican coal miner saying the statement made him support Grimes; mentioning McConnell's votes against raising the minimum wage; showing a former miner saying McConnell has done nothing for miners; and ending with Grimes saying she would "starkly oppose" those who undermine coal jobs in the state. Watch the video here or below.
  
• Ralph Davis of the Floyd County Times reports on Grimes's visit last week to an underground coal mine (left) and a roundtable discussion in Prestonsburg.
• McConnell chided Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy "for appearing on an HBO comedy talk show while she has refused to meet with his constituents to hear how regulations will harm them," The Hill reports.
• Grimes reached out to veterans. In a statement, she called on McConnell to extend unemployment insurance benefits for veterans and "to make permanent the federal VOW to Hire Heroes Act, which provides businesses a one-time tax credit for every unemployed or disabled veteran they hire."

Grimes and McConnell duke it out over student loans; bill's sponsor to campaign for fellow Democrat

By Megan Ingros
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes attacked Sen. Mitch McConnell for blocking a bill that would have let Americans refinance student loans and paid the cost by raising taxes on the wealthy.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), announced soon after the June 11 vote that she will be campaigning for Grimes in Kentucky. Asked on MSNBC how she planned to fight back, she said, "One way I'm going to start fighting back is I'm going to go down to Kentucky and I'm going to campaign for Alison Lundergan Grimes. She's tough, she's feisty, she endorsed the student loan bill, said she wanted to bring down interest rates for Kentuckians."

Warren told interviewer Chris Hayes, "Mitch McConnell is there for millionaires and billionaires. He is not there for people who are working hard playing by the rules and trying to build a future for themselves."

McConnell said on the Senate floor, "Senate Democrats don't actually want a solution for students. They want an issue to campaign on -- to save their own hides in November. . . . Students can understand that this bill won't make college more affordable. They understand it won't reduce the amount of money they have to borrow. And students know it won't do a thing to fix the economy that's depriving so many young Americans of jobs."

McConnell said Democratic Whip Charles Schumer said two years ago that if Democrats "wanted to be, quote, political about this" issue they would have paired it with a tax increase on the wealthy. "His words show, without equivocation, that Senate Democrats are now playing politics with the futures of young Americans -- instead of doing something about the VA crisis."

McConnell said the Democrats who run the Senate should give "full attention" to legislation addressing problems in the Department for Veteran Affairs health care system rather than passing bills to create issues for the election.

Warren's bill died Thursday, June 11 on a 56-38 vote, four votes short of the 60 needed to pass significant legislation in the Senate. Only three Republicans voted with Democrats to proceed with the bill.

Grimes, in a statement, said the bill would have helped 360,000 Kentuckians with student loan debt."The Obama administration estimated the bill could have helped 25 million borrowers save $2,000 over the lifetime of their loans," The Washington Post reported. The default rate for student loans is higher then for other types of loans.

Grimes said the average Kentuckian's student loan debt is $22,384, and "this vote against our middle-class families underscores the fact that my opponent has been in Washington for far too long and just does not get it."

Grimes released a record and background of McConnell's history with student loans. One example given was in 2013 when McConnell "voted against ending filibuster on plan to extend student loan interest rates for two years and keep them from doubling by closing tax loopholes including those for oil companies."

Grimes called on the Senate "to pass both the legislation to ease student loan burden as well as the bipartisan bill to address problems within the Department of Veterans Affairs."

Roundup for May 23: McConnell says of vets secretary, 'I think it'd be time for him to go as well'

Going into the Memorial Day weekend, we have these stories:

• Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal writes, "Alison Lundergan Grimes has split with the Obama administration in calling for the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki in response to delays in treatment and falsified record-keeping." Gerth notes that Sen. Mitch McConnell called Monday for a change in "the management team" at VA and called yesterday for Grimes to support his bill that would "make it easier for the VA secretary to fire top-level civil servants responsible for mismanagement, delayed medical care or backlogs."
• Mark Murray writes on NBC News' First Read makes Grimes' statement the leading example to show that "The Democratic dam is already starting to break" on the issue. The National Journal sees a "growing chorus of Democratic congressional candidates desperate to get some distance from the administration." It notes that "Grimes, whose first TV ad this year touted her work promoting military voting, was the first Democratic candidate to ask for Shinseki's resignation."
• McConnell came closer to calling for Shinseki to resign, saying at a Louisville press conference with Sen. Rand Paul, "Obviously, Secretary Shinseki has not done a good job, but it's deeper than just him." Noting House passage of a bill to make it easier to fire VA civil servants for misdeeds, McConnell said, "I think it'd be time for him to go as well." What did that mean? Campaign Manager Jesse Benton said his candidate was trying to be diplomatic.
• Burgess Everett of Politico reports on the presser: McConnell hasn't spoken to defeated foe Matt Bevin since Tuesday night; he and Paul say the party will unify; Paul used different tenses a few sentences apart: “We’re excited to have the Republican Party all pulling together for our nominee. . . . I think the party will pull together quickly.”
• Everett also notes that Grimes "sent an 'open letter' to the 40 percent of Kentucky Republicans who did not vote for McConnell on Tuesday, insisting she shares the same 'fundamental views and important goals' of most Republicans: Cutting spending, balancing the budget and telling Washington to help Kentuckians or get out of the way."
• Jason Millman writes on The Washington Post's Wonkblog about three states where federal health reform could be a decisive issue. "Kentucky is about as big of an Obamacare paradox that you could find: the state's exchange is working well, but Obamacare remains unpopular in the state," Millman writes. "It’s also home to one of the more successful Obamacare health insurance exchanges." He concludes, "Grimes may want to have a better answer the next time she's asked whether she would have voted for the health-care law."
• The Lexington Herald-Leader opines that McConnell should accept Grimes's proposal that they strike an agreement to keep outside groups out of the race, as Democrat Elizabeth Warren and then-Sen. Scott Brown did in Massachusetts in 2012. That seems unlikely, since McConnell is expected to be the beneficiary of millions in super-PAC spending and have a financial advantage.