Kentucky senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat, has her hands full fending off sharp and sustained attacks from her Republican opponent, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But now she also has to contend with a scathing criticism from the Washington Post, which accused her Thursday of running what is “likely the worst ad of a nasty campaign year.”
“Grimes should be ashamed of herself,” writes Glenn Kessler, the man behind the Post’s “Fact Checker” column.
At issue with the Fact Checker is a Grimes ad, which has not yet been publicly released, wherein the Democratic senate hopeful makes the following claim:
The problem with the ad, Kessler writes, is that Grimes “doubles down” on a false claim — one that has already been awarded the Post’s infamous “Four Pinocchios” — their fact-check equivalent of “Pants on Fire.”
“Grimes first makes a nonsense claim that McConnell should have somehow arranged for scrubbers in a privately-owned plant that would have sent utility rates soaring,” Kessler writes.
“Then, in a desperate effort to somehow cite Bloomberg’s name, she accuses McConnell of being bought off by a $9,000 payment to McConnell’s wife (who is independently wealthy). Citing a $600,000 number from ‘enemies of coal’ is especially silly, as it mostly involves money from a bank that continues to finance coal companies,” he added.
What’s especially odd, as noted by the Post, is that Grimes herself repeats the many false claims rather than rely on a narrator to do the dirty work.
There may be a reason for this.
McConnell currently leads Grimes in the polls 46.6 to 42.2 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics weighted average. Similarly, the Ace of Spades Headquarters Decision Desk shows that McConnell is ahead in the polls 47.2 to 43.4 percent. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee abandoned the race last week, but jumped back in with a $650,000 ad buy after some Grimes backers raised more than $2 million for the committee on Monday. The rest of that money will be spent in states where Democrats have a better chance of winning.
Candidates who believe they are losing often resort to last-minute, scorched earth ads as a sort of Hail Mary pass. Indeed, there’s a rich history of this in Kentucky. For example:
Grimes’ decision to appear personally in an ad to repeat claims that have already been debunked as falsehoods could very well signal that she and her campaign are desperate for something that will stick.
