Excellent:
http://www.courier-journal.com/...
Alison Lundergan Grimes' grandmother is back.
Elsie Case, who along with Grimes' other grandmother Thelma Lundergan McHugh, became the stars of Grimes' 2011 election as Secretary of State, is starring in Grimes' latest ad. McHugh died in 2012.
But unlike the original ad, which was funny and fun, the latest ad takes a much more serious tone with Case talking about her late husband, Omar. Omar Case had a stroke in 2000 and it robbed him of the ability to speak. He died ten years later.
In the ad, Elsie Case said the stroke brought hardship. Grimes said her grandparents struggled to pay for medicine.
"Our lives became something else," Case says in the ad. "No vacations. No retirement. Just existing."
Then Grimes explains how all this relates to her Senate race against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.
"This is why we have to strengthen Medicare," Grimes says. "Sen. McConnell has voted over and over again to raise seniors' Medicare costs. I'll never do that."
A graphic on the ad cites three procedural votes on budget bills to support Grimes' contention that McConnell "voted over and over again to raise" Medicare costs. - Louisville Courier-Journal, 9/18/14
Here's a little more info:
http://www.12newsnow.com/...
Grimes' new ad costs six figures, is 60 seconds long and airs statewide in Kentucky Thursday, days after a six-figure ad broadcast by McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader. That ad pinged Grimes for supporting Obamacare.
"Grimes twice supported Obama's platform for Obamacare," says the narrator in McConnell's latest, which is a response to Grimes' earlier skeet-shooting attack.
Grimes has in the past criticized McConnell's votes to defund the Affordable Care Act. Focusing on Medicare pulls at different heartstrings, however, and can cause a limited group of voters to abandon normal political alliances, a tactic especially helpful in the tight race between Grimes and McConnell.
"My grandfather was a proud man," says Grimes in her latest ad, entitled, "A Proud Man," which is interspersed with old photographs of her grandfather and grandmother.
He "didn't want to ask for help, but they needed it," she says.
For 10 years the Case family struggled to afford medicine when Grimes' grandfather was left unable to work or speak after the stroke.
"We scrimped and saved, because suddenly our finances were going for medical bills," said Case.
Grimes has attacked McConnell on Medicare before, bashing a McConnell vote on Medicare that she said cost a coal miner a $6,000 increase in medical bills. And she has featured her family in at least one political ad while running for secretary of state in 2011. That ad, which featured both of Grimes' grandmothers, was widely credited for her 61% victory in that race. - CNN, 9/18/14
And of course McConnell's not happy:
http://www.politicususa.com/...
Clearly alarmed by the fact that Grimes found a way around McConnell’s relentless attempts to falsely tie her to President Obama by going right to the heart of the matter, Team Mitch spokeswoman Allison Moore responded to Grimes’ latest ad with a callous statement accusing her of “using” her deceased grandfather’s stroke:
“It’s a touching family story about a familiar circumstance to many Kentucky families followed by a totally debunked partisan attack on Senator McConnell from an increasingly desperate Alison Grimes. Anyone who would use their grandfather’s stroke to reintroduce an attack that received the triple crown of fact check false ratings has run out of justification for their candidacy.”
Team Mitch are clearly hoping to shame Grimes out of discussing something personal that impacts most Americans at some point in their lives and thus is relevant to a policy debate.
Also, not exactly Team Mitch.
PolitiFact fact checked a specific Grimes’ campaign claim based on the Ryan budget made over the summer, and even they determined that yes, Mitch McConnell is on record supporting the Ryan budget (the one the Nuns called immoral because of the harm it would bring to vulnerable children, seniors, and more). This is the budget that even PolitiFact describes as changing Medicare fundamentally thusly: “Medicare would have undergone a drastic change for future retirees. Instead of the government paying doctors and hospitals for services they provide for seniors, beneficiaries would be given a voucher they could use to purchase private health insurance to cover their care.”
When you hear the word “voucher”, it’s time to check your back.
PolitiFact determined that the non partisan Congressional Budget Office found that “implementing the 2011 Ryan plan would lead to an increase in out-of-pocket costs for seniors. How much? Instead of paying 27 percent of all their health care costs, seniors would be paying about 61 percent.” So yeah, the figures used in the Grimes ad were correct. The only reason they rated her claim as “false” was because of the age of the specific person used in her ad. You see, “The average out-of-pocket costs a new senior would pay in 2022 if Medicare changed to a more privatized system. People who turned 65 prior to 2022, like the retiree in Grimes’ ad, would remain in the current Medicare system and would not incur those costs.”
So, not only is this rebuttal inaccurate because the new Grimes’ ad simply stated that he had voted to raise the costs of Medicare and he has, but McConnell did support the Ryan budget. He also voted to close the donut hole for Medicare Part D, and the Republican Party — 30 year incumbent McConnell is the Senate Minority Leader, not exactly a sideliner on issues — has been trying to semi-privatize Medicare for years. - Politicus USA, 9/18/14
This race ain't over folks. We can still win this race. Click here to donate and get involved with Grimes' campaign:
http://alisonforkentucky.com/