A blistering attack on Mitch McConnell
Whatever chance Alison Lundergan Grimes has of ousting Mitch McConnell in Kentucky probably turns on just how badly disliked the Senate Minority Leader remains within the state. As Aaron Blake has observed, the McConnell camp has bet it all on tying Grimes to Obama — who is even less popular than McConnell is — but if Grimes can make the election about the guy who is actually on the ballot, she just might be able to prevail.
And so, the Grimes campaign is going up with its first paid ad attacking McConnell over the leaked audio of him vowing to a Koch brothers donor conference that a GOP Senate won’t allow debate on a minimum wage hike, extension of unemployment benefits, or student loan relief. The ad also hits McConnell over his promise to the donors to use budget procedural tactics to roll back Obama’s agenda, and unleashes a harsh attack on his mendacity:
video: http://wapo.st/1DBuyLg
The ad hits viewers with a blizzard of fact-check headlines (“false…misleading…a whopper”) about previous McConnell claims, and intones:
“He’ll say anything. Now we learn what he said to a secret meeting of billionaires: That he’ll block a higher minimum wage, extension of unemployment benefits, and affordable student loans. And to get his way, he says he’ll shut down the government again. Thirty years is long enough.”
McConnell did say in that donor confab, in a reference to those three issues, that “we’re not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals.” McConnell also vowed to the donors that a GOP majority in both houses would use “riders” in spending bills to “go after” Democratic policies “all across the federal government,” on health care, Wall Street reform, and environmental regulations. McConnell never said directly that he would shut down the government, but his vow does amount to a promise of confrontational brinksmanship to roll back previously achieved policy gains that does make a government shutdown more likely.
I’m told the size of the buy is “significant,” but I was unable to get any more ad buy detail than that.
More here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/10/22/a-blistering-attack-on-mitch-mcconnell/
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