Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes released a campaign ad Wednesday that uses her party’s “war on women” strategy to attack her powerful Republican opponent, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The 30-second television spot features Mrs. Grimes seated in a front yard with Ilene Woods, of Lynch, Kentucky, who asks Mr. McConnell why he voted against the Violence Against Women Act and a bill that would require equal pay for women in the workplace.
After about 10 seconds of awkward silence, Mrs. Grimes says, “I can never get him to answer this one, either.”
She then warns the incumbent to watch out, because “over half the voters in Kentucky are women like Ilene.”
Mrs. Grimes is locked in a tough race against Mr. McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate and a skilled politician who has served in the upper chamber since 1985.
The McConnell campaign said Wednesday that Mrs. Grimes’ ad distorted the record, in that the minority leader co-sponsored the first Violence Against Women Act and opposed the bills in question because of Democratic add-ons and how the majority constructed some of its provisions.
Mr. McConnell and his GOP colleagues are painting Democratic candidates as too in-step with President Obama — in Kentucky’s case, too willing to take on the vital coal industry — in a bid to gain six seats and the chamber, allowing Mr. McConnell to rise to majority leader next year.
“Running for office exclusively on the Obama agenda isn’t doing the trick for Alison Lundergan Grimes so apparently she’s decided to run three straight absurdly inaccurate attack ads,” McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore said. “Sen. McConnell has been a leader throughout his career on combating domestic violence, including on the very law her ridiculous Obama-inspired attack ad is citing.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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