All the Latest on Grimes/McConnell from The RP’s KY Political Brief

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With Alison Lundergan Grimes’ announcement just a few days old, it seems like every news organization in the country is covering her challenge of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

From this morning’s KY Political Brief:

AND THEY’RE OFF – “McConnell vs. Grimes: Let’s get ready to rumble,” CNN: “It’s game on in Kentucky, in what could end up being the most expensive and nasty 2014 Senate race in the country. One day after Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who many in the Democratic party consider their best hope to unseat Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in next year’s midterm elections, announced that she’ll challenge the longtime GOP senator, and the emails from both sides are flying. … It’s part of a strategy by national Republicans and the McConnell campaign to tie Grimes to President Barack Obama, who lost Kentucky by 23 percentage points in last November’s election. … The Democrats strategy is just as clear as their Republican counterparts. They want to make this contest all about Mitch McConnell and his three decades in the nation’s capital.” [CNN]BEHIND THE SCENES – “‘Unorthodox’ and sometimes ‘surreal’ meeting prompted Grimes to reveal, and possibly to make, decision to run” by CN|2’s Ryan Alessi: “Even Alison Lundergan Grimes didn’t know what she would announce to the world late Monday afternoon when she arrived at the building she used as the headquarters for her campaign in 2011. Or, at least, she didn’t let on to the more than 100 supporters she called there that she had made a decision about running for the U.S. Senate until the very end of the meeting. Interviews with more than a half-dozen people who attended the meeting — several of whom asked not to be quoted — yielded descriptions of Grimes’ approach to the announcement as “unorthodox,” “unprecedented,” “fascinating” and, at times, “surreal.” Instead of telling supporters whether she was running for Senate, Grimes opened it up for them to tell her what they thought. After the first several people spoke, Grimes began calling on others by name to give their takes. After nearly an hour, a consensus emerged: she should run for the party’s nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. …”Grimes opened the meeting up by thanking her supporters for traveling from urban areas and more rural areas of western and eastern Kentucky. Without tipping her hand about which way she was leaning, she told the group she wanted to hear from them. … It was [State Sen. Julian] Carroll who got the meeting going with a fire-and-brimstone speech urging Grimes to carry the party’s mantle against McConnell. … Carroll, who has spent much of the last 50 years in state government, told the group that McConnell can be beaten – that he has lost touch with voters and the priorities of Kentucky and that he has been an obstructionist. He told Grimes that she has the smarts, personality and network to beat him.” [CN|2 Politics] THE VIDEOS – “Mitch McConnell attacks Alison Lundergan Grimes with Auto-Tune,” WaPo: “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has responded quickly to his new Democratic opponent — with Auto-Tune. Over an autotuned beat, a new Web video from the senator’s campaign rhymes “Alison Lundergan Grimes” to various lines of attack — “Not Ready for Prime Time,” “Sticks to Party Line,” “Left Wing Mime.”” [WaPo] … SEE the auto-tune video [YouTube] —In the McConnell campaign’s second video release of yesterday, it criticized Grimes’ announcement for being quickly arranged. “Checklist” was released on YouTube last evening.WATCH [YouTube] ABOUT THAT ANNOUNCEMENT – “Alison Lundergan Grimes’s underwhelming launch — and what it means,” WaPo: “Alison Lundergan Grimes is taking on perhaps the most fearsome Republican campaign operation in politics: the team of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. That daunting task is what makes her formal announcement on Monday all the more puzzling. To wit: * At her press conference, Grimes was flanked by a banner for her 2011 secretary of state campaign rather than a new banner for her Senate campaign. … * Grimes’s announcement was not promoted on her Twitter account, her Facebook page or really by anyone other than her top adviser, who told the Associated Press about the 3 p.m. announcement on Monday morning. … * As of Tuesday afternoon, Grimes still had no campaign Web site, though GrimesforSenate.com and AlisonforSenate.com appear to have been snapped up by someone. That means that anybody who was excited by her launch and wants to contribute money to her campaign has no outlet to do so. …* Grimes showed up more than half an hour late for her press conference, after gathering with advisers and supporters to inform them of her decision.” [WaPo] —“Grimes’ supporters pleased she is running but dread the attack ads” by CNHI’s Ronnie Ellis: “It wasn’t the smoothest of political announcements, although it would be hard to match for suspense. When Alison Lundergan Grimes, the 34-year-old Democratic first-term Secretary of State, entered the downstairs of the building on Democrat Drive here Monday, there was no guarantee she would tell supporters she was running for the U.S. Senate against Kentucky’s most powerful Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell. Even after the meeting began, most of the approximately 100 people in the room remained in suspense. Grimes didn’t tell them she was running – she instead asked them what they thought. … “Reporters and television cameras were already camped out in a sweltering room upstairs, waiting for the promised 3 p.m. announcement when they heard a burst of cheers from downstairs, which most took as an indication Grimes had told supporters she would run. They grew impatient as 3 p.m. came and went. They heard another cheer from downstairs and several Grimes supporters began filing into the room with smiles on their faces. … Meanwhile, Grimes was apparently on the telephone, telling her mother and others of her decision. Upstairs, one of her advisors, Jonathan Hurst, stepped to the microphone and told the reporters she’d be coming to the podium shortly. By the time Grimes appeared, it was 30 minutes past the announced 3 p.m. time for the announcement. She stood before a Secretary of State banner because “that’s all we had,” according to one of her staff.” [CNHI] —“An Awkward Start to McConnell-Grimes Race,” WSJ: “Senate campaigns aren’t decided 16 months before Election Day, but the race in Kentucky between Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes has gotten off to a decidedly bizarre start. First, Ms. Grimes announced her candidacy in a hastily planned, poorly organized press conference in which the backdrop advertised her current post (Kentucky’s secretary of state) rather than the one she is seeking (U.S. senator). Befuddled reporters quickly panned her initial foray into national politics. The Grimes campaign drew another round of taunts for unveiling a campaign website that is so barebones it looks like a relic of the early Internet era. The website and the hastily arranged news conference fed the impression that the 34-year-old might not be ready for an expensive, hard-fought tussle with Mr. McConnell. Then, Tuesday afternoon, the McConnell campaign sought to seize on the bad buzz by trotting out its own catchy but somewhat nonsensical web ad mocking his newly declared Democratic opponent as a self-centered proxy for Washington liberals who is “not ready for prime time.” It ended with a disclosure that misspelled Mr. McConnell’s surname.” [WSJ] ASHLEY JUDD jumps in to support Grimes’ bid, tweeting yesterday: “Even in thick woods outstanding news filters through. Thrilled for the people of KY & ready to fight beside ‪@AlisonForKY ‪@KySecofState” DAYS UNTIL : Fancy Farm2013: 31 … Next fundraising deadline: 89 … Primary Election filing deadline: 209 …  Fancy Farm 2014: 395 … Ky. 2014 Primary Election day: 321 … 2014 General Election day: 489 TEA PARTY TALK : “National tea party group urges Senator Mitch McConnell to consider retirement” by C-J’s Joe Gerth: “The head of a national political action committee with tea party leanings is urging Sen. Mitch McConnell to consider retirement from the U.S. Senate rather than face losing to Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. … “Mitch McConnell is now the least electable Republican senator running for reelection in 2014,” Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, told the Washington Post on Tuesday. “He could lose this race and cost Republicans the majority. He needs to consider whether it might be time to hang it up.” … In an interview with The Courier-Journal, Hoskins said he’s concerned that McConnell will lose moderate Democrats and independents who have helped elect him in the past. … “The Senate Conservatives Fund is a super PAC that was created by former U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, who was an early leader of the tea party movement. He quit the senate earlier this year to become president of the Heritage Foundation and is no longer associated with the PAC. The group has never been in step with McConnell or the Republican establishment from where he comes. In 2010, the group, at DeMint’s direction, endorsed Rand Paul for the Senate while McConnell was backing then Secretary of State Trey Grayson.” [C-J] MORE ANALYSIS – Jonathan Miller for HuffPost, “How Alison Lundergan Grimes Can Defeat Mitch McConnell”: “… Alison Lundergan Grimes can beat Mitch McConnell.  But like most congressional campaigns, which often can be decided by the national political winds, Grimes’ success will be determined by several factors over which she will be able to exercise very little oversight.  Here are a few that might make the difference between a Grimes victory and a McConnell sixth term … Barack Obama … The McConnell team has not merely hinted that it will be doing everything in its power to tie Alison Grimes to the president, who is quite unpopular in this deeply red state; it has whack-a-moled the theme in all of its early political advertisements. … Independent Political Organization Spending … While editorial pages and good government activists have pilloried the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United that provided corporations with the same political speech rights as individuals, there’s been no more prominent and passionate advocate for unrestricted (and undisclosed) campaign spending than Mitch McConnell.” [HuffPost] —“Grimes faces tough odds in bid to unseat McConnell” by H-L’s Beth Musgrave: “Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes faces tough odds in her campaign to unseat U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but the race remains competitive, political pundits said Tuesday. Grimes’ biggest problem: She must carry the political ball-and-chain that is President Barack Obama as she runs against a five-term incumbent who already has more than $8 million in his campaign war chest. In 2012, Obama collected just under 40 percent of the vote in Kentucky, winning only four counties. Voters in Central Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District also booted Democrat Ben Chandler out of office, leaving Louisville’s John Yarmuth as the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation. … “That’s a huge problem for Grimes,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter that handicaps political races. “Mitch is not widely popular. But the bigger problem for Grimes is she is a Democrat in a federal race in a Republican-leaning state.”” [H-L] —“Kentucky U.S. Senate Race Pits Grimes Inexperience Against McConnell Unpopularity” by WFPL’s Phillip Bailey: “The entrance of Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in the race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Mitch McConnell makes the Kentucky contest one of the most closely watched in the country. And the early jabs appear to put up Grimes’s relative inexperience against McConnell’s wide unpopularity. After meeting with supporters, Grimes announced this week she intends to seek the party’s nomination to run against the GOP leader next year. Immediately, the McConnell campaign and GOP groups mocked Grimes’s rollout as a sign the first-term secretary of state isn’t prepared to run at the national level. The amount of attention spent on poking fun at Grimes could be further evidence this race will be the nastiest in 2014. But the Grimes team argues a full campaign rollout will be active by the end of July, and the criticisms are a petty distraction.” [WFPL]

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