Scott Wartman

swartman@nky.com

Conventional wisdom would deem Northern Kentucky as safe ground for Republicans.

The hundreds of Democrats on Wednesday who gathered around the World Peace Bell in Newport, however, didn't think so.

Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes received an ear-splitting welcome from Democrats cheering at the top of their lungs as her bus pulled up alongside the World Peace Bell. A sizable contingent of press, including CNN, was there.

Buoyed by a new Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll that showed Grimes retaking the lead over Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell by two percentage points, the large crowd showed the enthusiasm in the Kentucky senate race hasn't waned.

While surveying the crowd, State Rep. Arnold Simpson, D-Covington, said he hasn't seen this much enthusiasm for a Democratic Senate candidate since the 1980s when Democrats held a stronger grip on Kentucky politics.

"This is a good sign if we can get this many people energized and talking," Simpson said. "This a ground swell of ordinary Kentuckians."

Both Grimes and McConnell in the past two weeks have paid close attention to Northern Kentucky, with McConnell making at least four visits in that time to the region.

Grimes hoped to win the crowd over by focusing on two of the region's biggest issues, the Brent Spence Bridge and heroin abuse. Rep. Leslie Combs, D-Pikeville, spoke before Grimes and promised the crowd Grimes would get a new bridge built.

Both Grimes and McConnell have touted plans to pay for the $2.6 billion Brent Spence Bridge replacement and renovation. McConnell's would repeal prevailing wage on federal construction projects to save money and direct that savings toward infrastructure projects. Grimes' would repeal some corporate tax breaks and direct the tax revenue to projects like the Brent Spence Bridge.

Critics of both plans have said they stand little chance of passing Congress.

When asked by The Enquirer how she could get her plan passed, she answered by calling McConnell names.

"I think you get the 'Guardian of Gridlock,' 'The Doctor of No' out of Washington, and you'll see the impossible be possible," Grimes told The Enquirer after the speech.

Grimes' plan to address the heroin problem in Kentucky would also rely on repealing corporate tax breaks to generate more money for law enforcement and drug treatment. Grimes accused McConnell of ignoring the heroin problem.

"I challenge you, Mitch McConnell, to come here and tell the folks in Northern Kentucky that you have no plan to address the heroin problem that's here in the northern part of our state," Grimes said.

That drew the ire of McConnell's campaign. "Brazen falsehoods," tweeted McConnell's top aide Josh Holmes.

McConnell, in recent visits to Northern Kentucky, has said he wants to expand the number of counties designated High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, which might increase the amount of money and law enforcement coordination available. But whether Northern Kentucky would be included wasn't clear.

McConnell's campaign slammed Grimes' speech by tying her to President Barack Obama, calling her bridge plan a tax increase and touting an award McConnell received from law enforcement.

"Alison Grimes has officially entered an alternate universe where she's surrounded by left-wing Obama loyalists with a fleeting grasp on reality," said Allison Moore, spokeswoman for McConnell's campaign,in a statement. "She is touting a $273 billion federal tax increase as a bridge plan, while attacking the Kentucky Narcotics Officer Association's 'legislator of the year' on his efforts to combat our drug epidemic."