Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., may come across as soft-spoken, but don’t let that fool you: He’s got sharp elbows and a sharp staff, and when you come at him, you’d best not miss.
Alison Lundergan Grimes, McConnell’s Democratic challenger, released a video on Monday featuring the Democratic Senate candidate talking about her plans for Kentuckians, emphasizing that she is not like President Obama, an extraordinarily unpopular figure in the Bluegrass State. Late last month, a CNN poll found that Obama’s approval rating in Kentucky is only 29 percent.
McConnell’s people responded almost instantly, using Grimes’ own ad against her in their own spot:
“Time and again, people expect Mitch McConnell to get caught slipping. He doesn’t. They turned this within hours. It busted her contrived and phony attempt to distance herself from her Tiger Beat Dream Date Barack Obama,” Republican strategist Rick Wilson told the Washington Examiner. “In the end, ‘Obama needs Grimes’ is a box she can’t shoot her way out of,” he added.
Indeed, with a single image, one simple callback, McConnell’s team used Grimes’ ad to tie her to the very person she has been trying to avoid.
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump agreed McConnell’s people handled Grimes’ attack perfectly: “McConnell’s point is that Grimes is an Obama clone, and his point is made very effectively — even making sure the two Democrats’ weapons are pointing in the same direction.”
The Kentucky Senate race, Bump added, is “about whether or not Grimes is an Obama clone, thanks to McConnell’s very effective framing. Meaning that by releasing her gun ad, Grimes basically walked right into McConnell’s strategy.”
The Grimes campaign has since responded to McConnell’s team turning her ad on its head by accusing the Republican senator of desperation.
“In a sign of weakness, Mitch McConnell’s campaign scurried to respond directly to our latest strong ad underscoring just how worried Mitch McConnell is seven weeks from Election Day. This dishonest attack shows how little respect McConnell has for the voters of Kentucky,” campaign manager Jonathan Hurst told the Examiner in a statement Tuesday.
“He’s throwing the entire kitchen sink at our campaign in one shallow ad, desperately hoping that Kentuckians will forget Alison is independent and has always put Kentucky first on coal, guns and the over burdensome EPA regulations,” the statement added. “Mitch McConnell can’t run an honest campaign against Alison, and is now stooping to attack the straw man opponent he wish he had.”
