Fancy Farm, an annual picnic in Kentucky, has been held every year since 1880. | AP Photos McConnell, Grimes face off

Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes used her speech at Kentucky’s Fancy Farm picnic Saturday to argue that “Mitch McConnell doesn’t care.”

Her face reddened as she yelled into the microphone over boosters and booers, claiming at various points that the Republican senator doesn’t care about working people, seniors, women, students, unions and coal miners.


“One of us represents the Washington establishment; one of us represents Kentucky,” Grimes said. “One of us represents the past; one of us represents the future.”

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The minority leader used his speech to nationalize the race and paint Grimes as a tool of national Democrats.

“Barack Obama only needs one thing to keep his grip on power. He needs to keep the U.S. Senate,” McConnell said. “There’s only one way to change America in 2014. That’s to change the Senate and make me the leader of a new majority — to take America in a different direction.”

In the most expensive and highest-profile Senate race of the year, not to mention the tightest in the polls, both sides tried Saturday to frame the race going into the final three months before Election Day.

Fancy Farm, an annual picnic in rural western Kentucky, has been held on the grounds of St. Jerome Catholic Church every year since 1880. Thousands of people come for barbecue and politicking, especially in an election year.

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It’s the rare event where a politician addresses a throng of screaming partisans from both sides, meaning cheers run even with jeers. Republicans wore red McConnell shirts; Democrats wore blue Grimes shirts. Statewide and local officials also get to speak. This year most everyone else played the part of surrogate and talked about the Senate race — including junior Sen. Rand Paul, who wrote a limerick making fun of Grimes.

A coin toss determined the speaking order. Grimes won and spoke first.

Grimes unveiled an endorsement from the United Mine Workers of America. “They are standing shoulder to shoulder with me because they’re tired of the hot air from Sen. McConnell,” she said. “They’re waiting for a senator that will fight for their jobs and their black-lung benefits.”

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McConnell, elected to the Senate since 1984, repeatedly compared Grimes, elected Kentucky ecretary of state in 2011, to the president. He noted that both sought higher office with limited experience, raised a lot of money from liberals and relied on Bill Clinton for help. The former president is making a second trip to campaign for Grimes in Kentucky this week.

“Barack Obama has been a disaster,” said McConnell. “I guess that’s what we get for electing someone with no experience. He was only two years into his first big job when he started campaigning for the next one. Sound familiar? … Well, lesson learned. We’ll never make that mistake again.”

With people in the crowd holding signs that said “Grimes = Obama,” the Democrat mentioned Obama just once, at the end of her speech.

“Senator, you seem to think the president is on the ballot this year,” Grimes said. “He’s not. This race is between me and you!”

McConnell is believed to have a slight structural advantage because of the power of incumbency, his fundraising prowess and the increasing redness of the Bluegrass State in federal elections. But the race will stay very tight until the end. Just ask Tom Daschle and Harry Reid how hard it is to run for reelection as a Senate leader.

Highlighting the national importance of the race, the Democratic Senate Majority PAC unveiled a $900,000 ad campaign against McConnell on the morning of the event. The 30-second ad is built around video footage of the now 72-year-old senator from when he was first elected, including as a much younger man in a tuxedo.

Grimes argued that McConnell is the embodiment of everything wrong with Washington. “Thanks to you, D.C. stands for Doesn’t Care,” she said.

Her newest ad attacks McConnell for voting against the Violence Against Women Act and equal pay legislation, and she hammered on those two themes Saturday.

“When it comes to being a woman and being treated equally here in the commonwealth of Kentucky, well, Mitch McConnell doesn’t care,” she said. “I do.”

“Senator, the women of Kentucky and nationally are here today to send a message: The barriers for women have not all been lowered because you are standing in our way,” she added. “Seventy-six cents on every dollar is not acceptable, and equal pay for equal work is not preferential treatment.”

Perhaps reflecting the culture, the local Republican state Sen. Stan Humphries said the contrast in the election is between a “seasoned veteran” who could become majority leader and “a young lady who has never passed one single piece of legislation [and] who is a novice to foreign policy.”

The Democrats booed especially loudly at the reference to Grimes as “a young lady.”

“Our nation’s future is at stake,” said Humphries.

Kentucky elects its governors the year before the presidential election. Jack Conway, the Democratic attorney general who lost to Rand Paul in the 2010 Senate race, is already running and talked up his accomplishments over the last eight years — including working with Florida’s Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi.

His potential Republican opponent next year, state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, used the event to formally announce his plan to run, too. But he will definitely have competition. One potential rival, Matt Bevin, lost to McConnell in May’s Republican primary. He gathered supporters and was working his way around the event.

Outgoing Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran against McConnell in 1996, started his speech by walking toward the senator and taking a selfie. Then he laced into him as the “chief obstructionist” in Washington.

“I had to get one last picture with the senator before Kentucky voters retire him in November,” Beshear said, “and retire him they will.”