Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is firing back at his Democratic challenger, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, accusing her of resorting to a publicity stunt in an attempt to distance herself from President Barack Obama.
“Alison Lundergan Grimes thought holding a gun like Barack Obama could convince voters that she’s ‘not Barack Obama,’ but Kentuckians already know that Grimes supports Obama and would be a sure vote in favor of implementing his anti-coal, anti-gun liberal policies," said McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore,
Fox News reports.
In an ad the McConnell camp released this week — a response to a Grimes attack — McConnell chides Grimes for her spot, which has her skeet shooting while telling voters: “I’m not Barack Obama,” explaining that she disagrees with the president on “guns, coal and the EPA.”
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She also mocks McConnell, a 29-year incumbent, for a photograph of him holding an antique rifle in the air.
“And Mitch, that’s not how you hold a gun,” she adds.
McConnell compared Grimes’ ad to a photo released last year by the White House showing Obama firing a large shotgun at Camp David shortly after being asked whether he had ever fired a gun, according to
CNN.
In McConnell’s spot, a six-figure statewide buy, CNN reports, McConnell guns for Grimes.
"Alison Grimes thinks shooting a gun will convince you she's not like Barack Obama," says the narrator. "But Grimes twice supported Obama's platform for Obamacare, for the war on coal, for Obama's foreign policy and, ironically, for gun control."
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The
Washington Post’s The Fix political blog says that McConnell’s ad “very effectively” paints Grimes as an “Obama clone,” down to “making sure the two Democrats' weapons are pointing in the same direction.”
McConnell’s strategy of tying Grimes to the president has resulted in her consistently
trailing in the polls, according to the Post. Her campaign manager, Jonathan Hurst, told the newspaper in a statement that McConnell’s quick response to Grimes’ latest ad shows “a sign of weakness.”