McConnell, Grimes make final pitches in Kentucky

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes spent Saturday criss-crossing Kentucky as the 15-month, $80 million Senate race hit the final stretch before Tuesday's election.
Fighting from behind, Grimes started her day with stops in northern Kentucky and Lexington that featured former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Grimes went on to another five rallies stretching to Muhlenberg County in Western Kentucky.
With a 5-point lead in the latest Bluegrass Poll, McConnell had a much more leisurely schedule. He had stops only in Louisville, Mount Sterling and Georgetown.
"This is not just a contest between ... a Washington fixture and a fresh face, but between old thinking and new thinking," Clinton told a roaring crowd in northern Kentucky as she tried to spur voters to the polls..
In Louisville, McConnell told those attending his event that his fate is up to them.
"At headquarters, we've actually run out of things to do," he said. "We've raised all the money we could raise, bought all the TV time we could buy ... dropped all the mail pieces we can, and it's all in your hands."
Grimes will keep up with the blistering pace with a total of 23 stops in 21 counties between Saturday and Monday. The 72-year-old McConnell, on the other hand, appears to be coasting, with only 11 stops in 10 counties over that span — with most of those stops coming Monday when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joins him on the trail.
Despite the fact that all public polls show Grimes trailing by between 3 and 8 percentage points, her campaign insists that the race is dead even and that Grimes has a better-than-half chance of upsetting the Senate minority leader.
On Saturday, the Rothenberg Political Report downgraded Grimes' chances, moving the race from "Lean Republican" to "Republican Favored."
It's high stakes for both parties. A Grimes win would mean that Democrats likely retain control of the Senate. If McConnell wins, the GOP would probably take the chamber and elect him to be majority leader.
At McConnell's first stop of the day in a former restaurant on Louisville's south side, he spoke for just six minutes to an enthusiastic crowd that the campaign estimated to be between 150 and 200 people.
He noted that the Bluegrass Poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for The Courier-Journal, WHAS-11, the Lexington Herald-Leader and WKYT, has him ahead.
"Even The Curious-Journal has now conceded that there are more voters out there for me than my opponent," he said of his hometown newspaper, which endorsed Grimes. "Not that they're happy about it, you understand."
And he focused on President Barack Obama, as he has throughout the campaign. "We watched it all over the last six years, the borrowing, the spending, the taxing, the overregulation and slow growth ... I think there's an excellent chance that all across the country, people are going to say, 'We need to try something different,' " McConnell said.
Clinton's visit follows by two days a campaign trip to Louisville and Ashland by her husband, former President Bill Clinton. In all, the Clintons, who are longtime friends of Grimes' father, Jerry Lundergan, made six visits to the state in the past year to help the 35-year-old Grimes.
Hillary Clinton and Grimes made joint appearances at rallies at Northern Kentucky University and at Transylvania University and at both stops, Grimes delivered now well-exercised messages that she would do more in Washington for Kentuckians than McConnell.
Attacking McConnell's assertion that his longevity and position in power brings advantages for the state, Grimes told her NKU audience that "his seniority hasn't left us with much."
Despite trailing in polls, Grimes insisted that it was McConnell who was "desperate" and "scared" and said, "The wind is at our backs."
Clinton told the rallies that the Senate battle here is being watched by the entire nation because, as she said at NKU, "more than any other place ... the voters of Kentucky have a chance not only to send a message, but to alter the course of politics and government."