KY-Sen: EPIC FAIL! McConnell (R) Ad Features Duke Instead Of Kentucky Basketball Team

You Mark Madness fans are going to love this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is running for reelection in a state where college basketball is king and the state's two best teams are set to clash in the NCAA men's basketball tournament on Friday.

But at the end of a Web video released Tuesday morning, it was the Duke University Blue Devils — from North Carolina — who were seen celebrating.

"This is our time to get it right, this is the moment, let's go out there and do it," says McConnell in the video, as brief footage of two Duke basketball players celebrating flashes on screen. An updated version was later put online with the Duke footage replaced by an image of a University of Kentucky player.

Kentucky plays in-state rival Louisville on Friday. Louisville, which is also featured in McConnell's video, won the national championship last year. Kentucky won it in 2012. - Washington Post, 3/25/14

And of course Alison Lundergan Grimes (D. KY) took a jab at McConnell:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...

The confusion is understandable. Both Duke's and Kentucky's colors are white and blue.

McConnell's campaign quickly pulled the ad once viewers noticed the Duke players and replaced it with a new version that featured University of Kentucky's Julius Randle.

McConnell, by the way, graduated from both the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky. He's generally avoided expressing a preference between the two teams but when Louisville won the March Madness tournament last year McConnell was thrilled.

McConnell's likely Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes, jabbed at the campaign over Twitter and a top McConnell staffer responded. - TPM, 3/25/14

Gimes also took the opportunity to highlight how out of touch McConnell really is:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

A spokeswoman for Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is running on the Democratic side to unseat McConnell, sent out a press release linking the ad incident with McConnell's tenure in Washington, D.C.

"After 30 years in Washington, DC, Mitch McConnell has clearly lost touch with Kentucky," Grimes spokeswoman Charly Norton wrote in the release. "It turns out he has been in Washington so long he does not even know the difference between Kentucky and Duke basketball." - Huffington Post, 3/25/14

Here's how it went down:

http://www.webpronews.com/...

For about a second, the new ad shows Duke’s Jon Scheyer and Lance Thomas embracing after winning the 2010 National Championship. If you remember, that’s when Duke knocked off the number 8-seeded Butler. - Web Pro News, 3/25/14

Ouch.  McConnell isn't the only politician to make a huge sports flub like this:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/...

With UK alive and fighting its way through the tournament (and Louisville too for that matter), hoops fever is high in Kentucky right now, making this the worst possible time for such an error. Can it stick? One thinks immediately of course of Martha Coakley's boner about Curt Schilling back in 2010.

Of course, Coakley spoke off the cuff and had no one else to blame. McConnell can presumably fob this off on his Beltway-brained consultants. But Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes can surely counter that it all just proves how Washington Mitch has become. Surely he reviews all his ads before they go up.

The real problem here, as compared to how damaging Coakley's remark was to her, is that McConnell isn't a woman. If he were, he'd never live this down. But maybe Grimes can drive it home. Check out this for uncanny prescience: At an early February event, she was extolling both of the state's teams and went into a riff about how whether you're Wildcat or Cardinal, surely all could agree that "when it comes to the job that Mitch McConnell has failed to do over the past 29 years, let's just face it. He is Duke."

Here's what we've learned so far about McConnell this campaign. 1) He made an idiot of himself hauling out that gun at CPAC, which he held as if contained the germs of leprosy. 2) When he tried to smile for the camera, he looks like your wicked Uncle Ernie. 3) He can't tell a Kentucky uniform from a Duke uniform. Great going! - Daily Beast, 3/25/14

That's not the only bad press McConnell is getting this week:

http://www.theblaze.com/...

Conservative radio host Mark Levin exploded on Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP leaders on Monday for refusing to stand against “extraneous” funding for the International Monetary Fund currently included in a Ukraine aid bill.

He accused McConnell of undermining House Republicans in the fight to pass a “clean” bill that only includes the $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine and other U.S. sanctions of Russia.

“[McConnell] delivered more than half of the Republican conference into the hands of Harry Reid and the Democrats, enabling them to gain leverage over the GOP-controlled House and pass this IMF crap I just told you about,” he said. “McConnell was pressing Republican senators to join Harry Reid on this vote.”

Several conservative lawmakers have objected to including the IMF provisions in the Ukraine aid bill.

“He’s not a conservative,” Levin said of McConnell. “He’s an operator.” - The Blaze, 3/24/14

Don't know if this helps McConnell's Tea Party challenger, Matt Bevin (R. KY), but don't forget, he really suck too:

http://www.courier-journal.com/...

Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Matt Bevin told Northern Kentucky Right to Life that he would vote to block Medicaid funding for birth control and that he wouldn't support candidates for any government position who aren't on record supporting abortion rights.

Bevin took those positions in a questionnaire sent out by the group as it prepared to endorse candidates in the 2014 election. He won the endorsement after McConnell didn't respond to the questionnaire.

McConnell has already won endorsements from Kentucky Right to Life and National Right to Life.

The Northern Kentucky group tends to be more uncompromising than the state and national group and has never endorsed McConnell despite his backing from other abortion foes.

When asked if he was concerned that cutting off contraceptives for poor people would increase the number of children born out of wedlock and increase costs to the federal government for welfare programs, his campaign said in a statement:

"Matt stands in lock step with conservatives who oppose all use of taxpayer money for abortion." - Louisville Courier-Journal, 3/24/14

Yes, March Madness has really hit Kentucky:

http://www.kentucky.com/...

March Madness isn't just for college basketball. This week's Political Paddock column gets in on the action with a would-be Cinderella story, some trash talk and a few Nate Silver predictions.

First, the Cinderella story.

Republican Matt Bevin desperately wants to upset Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in May's Republican primary for U.S. Senate, but it's hard to be a Cinderella if the top seed won't show up to play the underdog.

Bevin has accepted invitations to four debates or candidate forums, and last week started doing a "Clubber Lang" (Mr. T) impression from Rocky III, stepping up his criticism of McConnell for avoiding debates.

"McConnell's unable to defend his record, and he knows it," Bevin said. "I think he's afraid to be seen on stage with me for a variety of reasons. There's a stark difference from a number of perspectives when people both see and hear the two of us articulate why we're in this race and why it matters."

If we learned anything from the 2012 Republican presidential nomination battle, it's that 20 debates is too many. But in a democracy, zero is too few.

Of course, McConnell has nothing to gain and everything to lose from a debate against Bevin, just as likely Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes would against the small list of lesser-known candidates also vying for the Democratic nomination.

The McConnell campaign on Monday pointed to one quasi-debate between McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton and Bevin at a forum during Constitution Day ceremonies last September at the University of Kentucky.

"After losing one debate to our campaign manager, Bailout Bevin has spent the last eight months changing his story to whatever he thinks people want to hear on everything from where he went to school to what he stands for," McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore said Monday. "In the interest of consistency, he should probably debate himself and come back after he has declared a winner." - Lexington Herald Leader, 3/24/14

'

While McConnell and Bevin duke it out, Grimes been out on the campaign trail hitting McConnell and promoting her ideas:

http://www.wbko.com/...

Just a few weeks after her endorsement from President Bill Clinton in Louisville, Secretary of State and democratic senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes brought her message to Hopkinsville.

As expected, she focused on her potential general election opponent Senator Mitch McConnell and raising the minimum wage.

"$7.25 barely raises a family above the poverty level. I will tell you for far too long, Mitch McConnell has gotten away with increasing his pay each and every year, quadrupling his net worth on a government salary while voting against increasing the minimum wage. It stops now," said Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Grimes had former Governor Martha Layne Collins open up for her as well as current State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach.

"Tomorrow is the first day of spring and with your help starting here in western Kentucky, we're going to do some spring cleaning," said State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach.

A speech that got the crowd riled up for Grimes. - WBKO, 3/20/14

And she's been giving McConnell a new title:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/...

At a rally in Hopkinsville last week, Grimes noted that McConnell’s Washington tenure has been just shy of three decades.  

“He is the senator of yesterday,” she said, adding that the incumbent is “championing yesterday’s minimum wage, yesterday’s treatment of women, yesterday’s coddling of special interests and Wall Street bankers.”

The “senator of yesterday” line is set to become a well-worn mantra for the Grimes campaign, as a spokesperson characterized it as a “new point of attack” that the Democrat will continue to employ.  

Polls have thus far offered encouraging news regarding Grimes’ uphill battle to unseat the five-term lawmaker in November and become Kentucky’s first female senator. She leads McConnell by a slim 0.5 percent margin, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of recent public opinion surveys.  

In addition, McConnell’s approval ratings in the state have been well underwater, and Grimes has generated substantial buzz from national Democrats, who are rallying behind her upset bid. Former President Clinton campaigned on her behalf last month, helping to draw even more attention to what has become perhaps the marquee race of the midterms. - Real Clear Politics, 3/24/14

We have a real shot at winning this seat.  Lets make sure Grimes has the resources to beat McConnell.  Click here to donate and get involved with her campaign:
http://alisonforkentucky.com/