Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign released a new television ad Wednesday that ties Alison Lundergan Grimes, his Democratic opponent, to President Obama and pushes back against the “shaky claims” that the Kentucky Republican voted to increase Medicare premiums on today’s seniors.
“As Barack Obama’s Kentucky candidate, Alison Grimes repeats the same falsehoods Obama does,” the narrator says in the McConnell camp’s “Laughable” ad. “But news media call the Grimes-Obama Medicare attack laughable.”
The Grimes campaign on Tuesday rolled out a television ad in which retired coal miner Don Disney asks why Mr. McConnell voted to “raise my Medicare costs by $6,000.”
But fact-checkers at the Associated Press challenged the claim, pointing out that Mr. McConnell voted in favor of Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget blueprint that would change Medicare into a voucher-like program over time, but not affect current seniors.
“The truth?” the narrator says in the McConnell ad. “Grimes supports Obamacare, which cuts $700 billion from seniors’ Medicare. That’s how Obama and Grimes will pay for Obamacare.”
The narrator closed by saying, “Obama needs Grimes, and Kentucky needs Mitch McConnell.”
The Grimes camp countered that Mr. McConnell’s claim that the Democrat supported the $700 billion raid of Medicare to pay for Obamacare is a flat-out lie because Mrs. Grimes was not in the Senate to cast a vote for the health care law.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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