Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes hit Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with a fiery new political ad on Monday morning.
“Mitch McConnell can’t light the house on fire, then claim credit for putting it out, especially while it’s still burning,” the ad declares, as a house burns on screen.
Though McConnell was instrumental in brokering an end to the shutdown, Lundergan-Grimes hits the Senate Minority Leader for his role in the Congressional impasse that lead to the shutdown.
“He calls himself a proud guardian of gridlock,” the ad’s stern narrator notes, quoting McConnell back in 2006, and adds that McConnell voted for the shutdown.
McConnell voted against final passage of a Senate bill that left Obamacare funding alone and voted against provisions to put Obamacare funding back into the bill.
It’s a vote that shows just how tight a spot McConnell is in, thanks to his 2014 reelection battle: his Tea Party-backed primary challenger Matt Bevin hit McConnell on the same vote from the right, suggesting he should have voted against procedural budget motions to block the bill further.
The ad also says that the shutdown hurt Kentucky’s economy.
Lundergan-Grimes press secretary Charly Norton backed up the ad in an email release, writing that “thousands of Kentucky workers were furloughed, mine safety inspectors forced off the job, new small businesses prevented from opening and Louisville flood victims left with no flood relief.”