Now this is what I'm talking about:
http://wfpl.org/...
Speaking directly to Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes says she plans to hold the GOP accountable in next year's election.
In a nearly four minute kick-off ad, Grimes says she doesn't always agree with President Obama, but that McConnell is blocking legislation that would've helped Kentuckians out of spite.
"Your campaign wants to play silly games about where I am and where I stand. Well I'm right here in Kentucky senator, where I'll be holding you accountable," says Grimes to McConnell.
"We'll have this debate senator, and as you've probably already seen, I don't scare easy." - WFPL News 89.3, 7/25/13
More below the fold.
I'm looking forward to Grimes' upcoming campaign ads, especially since her Grandma will be returning for them:
http://www.dailyjournal.net/...
Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes brought back clever video of her grandmothers for her U.S. Senate race on Thursday, the same day that Republicans lodged a complaint against her with the Executive Branch Ethics Commission over a fundraising initiative.
The developments are just the latest in a heated race for U.S. Senate in Kentucky where Grimes is seeking to replace Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
The grandmothers starred in a TV ad that helped Grimes win a race for secretary of state two years ago by giving viewers a chuckle with their staged antics working on a campaign script and asking: "What rhymes with Alison Lundergan Grimes."
Since then, one of the grandmothers, Thelma Lundergan McHugh, died. But a clip of her from the previous race is included in the video posted online Thursday. The other grandmother, Elsie Case, has a cameo in the new video, which shows Grimes addressing McConnell directly, saying she doesn't scare easily. At that point, McHugh places her laptop on the table beside Grimes, saying, "And neither do I." Then she asks: "What rhymes with Mitch?"
The video, which is expected to be remade for TV spots, adds comic relief to what has already become a nasty race. McConnell, a bare-knuckle campaigner, is facing attacks from both Grimes and Republican challenger Matt Bevin, a Louisville businessman who formally entered the GOP primary on Wednesday. Besides the rhetoric from the candidates, outside groups already have been bombarding Kentucky TV viewers with attack ads, even though the election isn't until next year. - Daily Journal, 7/25/13
Knowing he has a tough race ahead of him, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) is working on winning over a key demographic: women voters:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Given recent struggles that Republican Senate contenders have had with women’s issues, Mr. McConnell’s advisers say they intend to confront head-on the criticism Democrats have already begun leveling against him on issues they view as particularly important to female voters.
“The long and short of it is, we’re going to be very aggressive in making sure people don’t mischaracterize what his record is, especially when it comes to women and women’s issues,” said Josh Holmes, Mr. McConnell’s chief of staff for Kentucky operations. “Not only are we not afraid of it, we’re very proud of it.”
Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has faced a female opponent only once during his nearly 30 years in the Senate. He and his team seem eager to try to head off a campaign in 2014 that could become a referendum on how female voters feel about the Republican Party’s recent record.
Several times he has explained his vote this year against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and his office — normally averse to stories about staff members — has willingly offered up for interviews the “strong women” with whom they say Mr. McConnell has always surrounded himself. His wife, Elaine Chao, served as labor secretary during President George W. Bush’s entire time in office. - New York Times, 7/25/13
McConnell's also been raising money from all over the country from campaign donors in New York, Florida and Texas in hopes of raising $1.7 million in the second quarter. McConnell's going to need that money to not only fight off Grimes but also his Tea Party primary challenger, Matt Bevins (R. KY). McConnell's been doing everything he can to avoid the same fate some of his colleagues like Dick Lugar (R. IN) and Bob Bennett (R. UT) suffered in their primaries:
http://tv.msnbc.com/...
McConnell, long prepared for Bevin’s entrance into the race, quickly released an ad attacking the challenger for tax liens accessed against a company Bevin’s family owns and the candidate has helped run.
This race will not be like the several of the GOP primaries of 2010 and 2012, when an upstart Tea Party challenger defeated an incumbent caught blindsided, like Indiana’s Richard Lugar last year. Bevin’s candidacy was rumored for months in Kentucky, and McConnell aides were intensely aware of it and ready to attack him the moment he formally entered the May 20 primary.
McConnell doesn’t want to worry about a Tea Party challenge forcing him too far to the right to win a general election. Kentucky is quite conservative; Barack Obama lost by 23 points there in November. McConnell’s anti-Obama credentials will help both against Bevin and his general election race against the likely Democratic candidate, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.
“He [McConnell] saw what happened to me, he saw what happened to Lugar, he saw what happened to Lisa Murkowski,” said Trey Grayson, the one-time Kentucky Secretary of State who lost the 2010 U.S. Senate primary there to Paul. “ I think he’s put himself in a strong position.”
At the same time, the Tea Party groups in Kentucky were wary of tapping a candidate like Indiana’s Richard E. Mourdock, who defeated Lugar in the 2012 GOP primary and then made controversial statements about rape and lost a Senate seat in a red state that a Republican should have won. Kentucky Tea Republicans spent months looking for the right kind of candidate, a conservative but one unlikely to make crippling gaffes in either the primary or general election. And they wanted someone to match McConnell’s prodigious fundraising abilities.
In Bevin, they found a millionaire, who is expected to put some of his own money in the race, as well as a candidate with a strong personal story, a captain in U.S. Army before entering business and the father of nine children, four of whom he and his wife adopted from Ethiopia. - MSNBC, 7/24/13
Plus I doubt McConnell's going to be happy running into Bevin at this event:
http://wfpl.org/...
Fresh from his campaign launch, Republican Senate candidate Matt Bevin will speak at this year's annual Fancy Farm picnic.
Bevin faces Senator Mitch McConnell in the GOP primary. McConnell will also speak at Fancy Farm, as will Democratic candidate and Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.
Grimes and McConnell are headliners at the August 3rd event, but Bevin's entry now puts two of McConnell's opponents on the stage. This lands the Senator in the middle of a crossfire and he and his allies will have to jab to the left and the right in their remarks. This will be the first head-to-head (to head) meeting for the candidates. - WFPL News 89.3, 7/25/13
But I guess McConnell can take some solace in the latest GOP poll:
http://www.politico.com/...
The Wenzel Strategies survey, in the field Tuesday and Wednesday nights, puts the Senate minority leader ahead of Matt Bevin by almost 40 points, 59 percent to 20 percent, among Republican primary voters. The rest said they are undecided.
Bevin, a wealthy Louisville businessman who announced his candidacy Wednesday, is largely undefined. He is viewed positively by 15 percent of respondents and negatively by 21 percent; two-thirds of voters indicated that they don’t have an opinion.
This makes Bevin vulnerable to the blistering attacks that McConnell already has unleashed to challenge his conservative bona fides.
McConnell leads Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes by 8 points, 48 percent to 40 percent, with 12 percent undecided. This is essentially unchanged from a survey they conducted a month ago. - Politico, 7/25/13
Wenzel Strategies is a GOP polling firm that has McConnell with a 53/46 approval and conducted a statewide telephone survey included 624 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent. So keep that in mind. Grimes' will officially kick off her campaign in Lexington on July 30th. You can go here to sign up for her campaign:
http://www.AlisonForKentucky.com/
Or you can click here to donate to her campaign:
https://secure.actblue.com/...