On Politics: Mitch McConnell, Amy McGrath continue to battle on TV amid pandemic

Louisville Courier Journal

Kentuckians are having their lives upended due to COVID-19, but pugilist politics related to the U.S. Senate race remain a staple as negative advertisements seize the airwaves.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and would-be Democratic challenger Amy McGrath traded barbs and accusations over the past 10 days with dueling television spots attacking one another over the coronavirus.

Alert to Bluegrass State voters: Even a global pandemic won't postpone this rivalry.

McGrath started by relentlessly attacking McConnell for leaving Washington on March 12 to attend a ceremonial event in Louisville — also attended by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — for a judicial appointee.

"That's right, he shut down the Senate in the middle of a pandemic and disappeared," McGrath said in a radio spot.

McConnell's campaign tried to push back against that assertion by calling for a cease fire on negative campaigning. It spotlighted how parts of its political operation had turned into an outreach coronavirus program for at-risk Kentuckians.

McGrath didn't yield. She continued to take swipes at the GOP leader across multiple platforms, including newspaper op-ed pieces, radio spots or statewide TV ads.

More:McConnell, Rand Paul mum as Senate colleagues cash in on coronavirus warnings

For instance, the retired Marine fighter pilot from Georgetown used a 60-second TV spot running statewide this week to telegraph how her campaign plans to showcase average Kentuckians who claim McConnell's personal power in Washington does little to help them.

McConnell's campaign responded Friday with its first TV spending of 2020.

"A deadly virus sweeps America, costing lives and jobs," a narrator says at the beginning of the 30-second TV spot, which features news clips of the pandemic.

The ad positions McConnell as being "at the center of the battle to rush aid to Americans" -- and then it unloaded on McGrath.

"Amy McGrath uses this crisis, spending millions on false, partisan attacks," the narrator says. "McGrath fuels fear with lies even liberal newspapers call false. But while Amy McGrath lies, Mitch McConnell leads."

Mitch fumbled, but Amy slipped

McGrath's campaign team believes it put McConnell at a great disadvantage going into last week.

As House Democrats and the Trump administration were negotiating the first coronavirus relief package, McConnell gave his critics ammunition with the much-panned optics of exiting Washington to attend the March 13 investiture for U.S. District Judge Justin Walker.

From the McGrath campaign's perspective, this was an unexpected opening to undercut McConnell's reelection argument that he is in the room when it matters.

McConnell's allies point out his absence wasn't a big deal. It was, they said, no different than when House Democrats and the president's team were lead negotiators during the government shutdown in 2017. In those situations, McConnell has explained before, the branches of government from opposite parties are more involved in the talks.

Democrats in Washington and Kentucky, however, piled on: They said when U.S. leaders were huddling to devise an action plan, McConnell wasn't taking the crisis seriously enough.

"McConnell makes the Senate wait until Monday to vote because he took a long weekend," McGrath said in a March 14 tweet. "Boy, I’m glad he never signed up as a first responder."

McGrath reiterated this in tweet four days later that used a line from a Washington Post op-ed by columnist Jennifer Rubin, who blasted McConnell for failing to "take an immediate vote on the House's relief package."

Except McConnell didn't make the Senate wait as The Washington Post noted in a correction to Rubin's op-ed, which clarified how the measure was "delayed due to procedural issues in the House."

McConnell's people wagged a finger at McGrath for continue to blame the Senate majority leader for the House's delay.

By March 16, the majority leader was beginning to adjust and counseled the 53-member Republican caucus to "gag" and vote for the Democratic-controlled House's plan.

The political whiplash had worked to an extent.

Remember McConnell had four days earlier lambasted the same bill — which enhances unemployment benefits, supplements food assistance programs and provides free testing — as a liberal "wish list."

“Instead of focusing on immediate relief to affected individuals, families, and businesses, the House Democrats chose to wander into various areas of policy that are barely related, if at all, to the issue before us," McConnell said in a March 12 floor speech.

Fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul was also used to give McConnell an assist on March 17. That's when, according to congressional leadership sources, Kentucky's junior senator insisted on an amendment to the House coronavirus relief package to curb spending elsewhere to pay for the $100 billion stimulus plan.

Paul's office told The Courier Journal on Wednesday there was an agreement with GOP leaders to have the amendment voted upon, but those same leaders apparently threw Paul to the wolves of the national media.

The Paul proposal crashed (earning just three votes). It gave McConnell more wiggle room when pressed by critics about further delays to the House bill.

Paul's office did not immediately respond on Saturday when asked if he felt McConnell had set him up.

On March 18, the Senate easily approved the stimulus measure by a 90-8 vote.

More:'Kinship' caregivers granted class action status in suit against state for foster pay

McConnell was then able to pivot to touting support for what he hopes will be a bipartisan and even larger legislative gift basket to address the coronavirus. He unveiled a bill on March 19 that seeks, among other things, to give direct financial assistance to Americans suffering the pandemic's economic impact.

Both McGrath and McConnell are trying to define what voters, many stuck at home because of the pandemic, will take away from this exchange.

The McConnell reelection is hoping to shift the gears back to emphasizing McGrath's procedural fib and how he "works around-the-clock" for Kentucky families and small businesses in their time of need.

“While Senator McConnell leads efforts to pass bipartisan coronavirus relief legislation, Amy McGrath chooses to deceive voters with false, negative ads,” McConnell campaign manager Kevin Golden said in a March 19 statement.

"It’s been one week since the President of the United States declared a national emergency, but Amy McGrath refuses to stop her non-stop lying and false attacks on Sen. McConnell’s record."

McGrath's energized campaign leaders believe they successfully painted McConnell as AWOL at the outset of the crisis.

"I’m glad the Senate finally started to take action over the last few days," McGrath said in a March 20 fundraising email to supporters. "But there’s just no good reason it took so long and so much more needs to be done — at times like this, every day of inaction is a day."

She goes on to describe the McConnell TV attack ad this week to supporters as "a brazen attempt to rewrite history" while reminding them again of the event with Kavanaugh.

"The fact is, Mitch doesn’t want voters to know that he just took a long weekend off to fly home for political events in the middle of a worsening public health crisis," McGrath said in the email.

"And he sure as heck didn’t want me to call him out on it."

Reach Phillip M. Bailey at pbailey@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4475. Follow him on Twitter at @phillipmbailey.