DSCC

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) enters Tuesday with his political fate on the line, and without the help of a cash-strapped national Republican Party.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has not aired advertisements in support of McConnell in his tougher-than-expected battle against Democratic businessman Bruce Lunsford, and has no plans to launch a last-minute buy on his behalf, NRSC spokesman John Randall said Monday afternoon. The NRSC has faced a large fundraising disadvantage compared to their Democratic counterparts.

Randall did not discuss the internal committee discussions that led to the decision to stay out of Kentucky, only saying that the determination was an indicator of the confidence the committee had in McConnell's re-election bid and his ability to carry himself to victory.

WASHINGTON - Four years after the GOP successfully sunk the Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate, Democrats are giving Republicans the reverse treatment by going after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

For the last three weeks, national Democrats have barraged Kentucky media markets with television advertisements slamming McConnell (R-Louisville). The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's newest TV ad, out this week, shows McConnell as a delivery truck driver while a narrator says the Republican "backed George Bush's crazy spending and delivered a $10 trillion debt."

In a press conference today, DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer was repeatedly pressed on whether the decision to target the opposing party's leader was proper. He responded that after Republicans succeeded in targeting then-party leader Tom Daschle in 2004, Democrats had a free hand to go after McConnell.

Incumbent U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) is shown as a delivery truck driver in the latest television spot from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, though the spot asserts the Republican "delivers for everyone but Kentucky."

Mostly animated, the ad puts a photo of McConnell atop of the body of a truck drive. The ad questions the assertion that he "delivers" for Kentucky.

A narrator says McConnell "backed George Bush's crazy spending and delivered a $10 trillion debt."

The ad also targets McConnell's vote for the recent $700 billion financial rescue package, arguing he "delivered a huge bailout to Wall Street."

"And McConnell gave tax breaks to companies that deliver American jobs to China," concludes the narrator.

The campaign of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) is out with eight new television spots today, each focusing on a different region of the state and what the campaign says are the four-term incumbent's accomplishments there.

Spots were cut featuring the Senator for eastern Kentucky, Hopkinsville, Owensboro, Paducah, northern Kentucky, Bowling Green, central Kentucky, and Louisville.

"Building central Kentucky's economy in tough economic times - it's a challenge," says McConnell in each spot, albeit with the region changed where appropriate.

The Senator then references specific projects for each region upon which he says he has worked. In the eastern Kentucky spot, for example,  McConnell says he has "fought to expand coal-to-liquids, promote coal as a transportation fuel, and create new energy jobs."

In the Bowling Green spot, the incumbent references the local university, touting "$60 million to support Western Kentucky University programs and cutting edge research."

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair John Ensign (R-Nev.) told reporters on a conference call this afternoon that Republican presidential nominee John McCain may have contributed to Republicans taking the blame for the economic crisis.

"John McCain  - during the debates and even since that time -has allowed the idea that deregulation caused the financial crisis that we are in instead of showing the fact that it was overregulation during the Clinton administration," said Ensign, who argued it was legislation like the Clinton-era Community Reinvestment Act and "new market rules" that caused recent economic turmoil.

"John McCain in not answering that well," continued Ensign. "He allowed Barack Obama to have the upper hand and allowed Democrats to get the upper hand, basically blaming Bush and the republicans for the financial crisis and saying that it's a failure of our free market system, when this is actually a failure of government."

Ensign said, as a result, the potential of a 60-seat filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate was being discussed.

"It's all because of the financial crisis that has hit the United States and because the Republicans are in the White House and about half the country thinks Republicans control the House and the Senate and we're getting blamed for this," said Ensign.

What about Kentucky? 

The Nevada Republican said "6 or 7 races would determine the make-up of the Senate," but expressed a degree of comfort with U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Louisville) chances in Kentucky against businessman Bruce Lunsford (D-Louisville).

Some of that comfort evidently comes via consideration of McConnell's sizeable war-chest. The four-term incumbent had $5.7 million in cash-on-hand remaining at the end of Sept. compared to Lunsford's $1.2 million.

"The Democrats are obviously spending heavily there," said Ensign, referring to two new television spots his counterparts in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have put on air. "The good thing is Sen. McConnell has raised a tremendous amount of money to be able to defend himself there and allowed us to focus on other races."

With 47 days remaining until the general election, the race between incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) and businessman Bruce Lunsford (D-Louisville) for the U.S. Senate remains one of the most watched contests in the state.

Saturday marks a landmark day for Lunsford, when the woman his campaign terms "the adopted daughter" of Kentucky will be stumping for his bid. U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) will be making two stops for him, in Pikeville and Lexington.

Lunsford's campaign continues to try and rally attendees to the events, dispatching numerous campaign e-mails encouraging supporters to catch Clinton's appearance.

In addition, Ryan Alessi of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports Gov. Steve Beshear (D-Lexington) has recorded a robocall asking central Kentucky Democrats to come out to the event.

Other national interests are continuing their push for Lunsford's efforts, as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee included McConnell among the GOP Senators targeted in a press release dispatched today.

The DSCC's new website targeting U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville), among others

Thursday it was television ads, mailers, websites, and press releases. A healthy majority of the types of media used in Kentucky's U.S. Senate race were in play on the gas price issue, as questions on energy continue to dominate the narrative of the campaigns of incumbent U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) and businessman Bruce Lunsford (D-Louisville).

The most visible manifestation on the day is the McConnell campaign's newest television spot, a thirty second attack on Lunsford that pulls out a variety of charges and lauds McConnell's plans for increased domestic oil production.

"Here's a shock: Kentucky's pro-tax papers support Bruce Lunsford's automatic gas tax increases," the ad's narrator announces to open the spot, as two newspaper editorials critical of an earlier McConnell ad are citied on screen.

Though admittedly financially disadvantaged, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee promised yesterday that his organization would not be outspent in Kentucky by its Democratic counterpart during this fall's campaigns.

"Chuck Schumer and the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee have recently placed television buys totaling approximately $44.8 million in targeted Senate races across the country," said chairman and U.S. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) in a statement. "I will not allow our Republican candidates to be outspent by the DSCC this cycle. Therefore, it is my intention to give the NRSC's IE [independent expenditure] Unit the total budget to match the DSCC dollar for dollar in every state they run ads."

The DSCC's $44.8 million ad buys accounts for a large chunk of their recently reported $46.2 million warchest - an amount that far outweighs the $24.6 million available to Ensign's organization.

While Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) had been pressing his general election opponent to take a position on the budget pending before the U.S. Senate, McConnell today took heat for his own morning vote in opposition to the budget.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fired off a release criticizing McConnell for his "no" vote on the $3 trillion 2009 budget package before the Senate today.

"The budget is a reflection of our nation's priorities, and today Mitch McConnell stood squarely against the values of Kentuckians," said DSCC spokesperson Matthew Miller in today's release. "Mitch McConnell had an opportunity today to create jobs and invest in energy independence, but instead he continues to put special interests' priorities ahead of middle class Americans."

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's efforts on behalf of Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Bruce Lunsford stepped up today, just two days after Lunsford secured the party's nomination for a November race against incumbent Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville).

The DSCC has unveiled a web-based advertisement that targets McConnell on gas prices.

The DSCC's recently published web-ad

The ads will run on two websites that offer consumers databases on gas prices across the country - GasBuddy.com and Gaspricewatch.com.

"Rather than fighting for his constituents who are facing record prices at the pump, Mitch McConnell continues to fight for the agenda of the oil industry that's making record profits,"said DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller in a release dispatched in conjunction with the ads. "Voters are tired of watching their wallets thinning at the tank while Mitch McConnell's campaign coffers are fattened by the oil companies."