RACE TRACKING: SPECTACULAR BID?

We must look pathetic - 20 reporters arid photographers waiting outside a Dollar General in August's 80-degree late-morning heat. We arrange ourselves under an arthritic claw of tree branches offering knobby knuckles of shade.

Earlier in the day, young volunteers in royal-blue "A14" shirts pounced upon anyone with a reporter's notebook, sharing a version of insider goods: "Off the record, there's going to he a parade to welcome Alison Lundergan Grimes to Fancy Farm. Keep it under wraps. 11:30. Meet at the Dollar General."

So here we are, waiting. Today marks the 134th Fancy Farm picnic, a day that combines 19,000 pounds of smoked meat with folksy political pandering and aggressive stump speeches. Candidates take to a stage built to mimic a red-brick porch and deliver zingy one-liners about their opponents. Before them, a rowdy clutch of the electorate, dressed in blue or red T-shirts, stands fit to heckle. This gathering isn't representative of Kentucky's undecided, a slim estimated 8 to 15 percent of voters. These are party loyalists. Union reps packing "Ditch Mitch" signs. A man in Tea Party regalia juggling a Diet Rite and megaphone, into which he yells, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the IRS has got to go!" Two middle-aged women bantering between bites of barbecue.

"Business professors tend to support conservative candidates. Liberal arts support liberals," one woman says.

"Well, we can do away with liberal arts," her friend replies. "These sandwiches are good."

It's 11:50. Still no parade. Sensing our salty, weeping pores, metallic country bugs nip at our brows and ankles. "Sweat bees," a bald reporter moans, swatting his forehead. I lend my bug spray to a writer from D.C. publication The Hill. Though no one says it, there's a collective frown among us: Why are we waiting for this? Because it's something. Something isn't substance, but it's something.

At 11:55, a crowd emerges up the road. Three horns and a snare drum play "When the Saints Go Marching In." Grimes, Kentucky's secretary of state, wears her standard outdoor-event uniform - jeans and brown cowboy boots. She is surrounded by family and other Democrats, including Gov. Steve Beshear. Photographers arc left to madly backpedal in front of her to get their shots.

"Happy Fancy Farm!" yells Grimes, who's tall and attractive, with an athletic build. The 35-year-old waves her arms, first left, then right, left, right, over and over again. "Welcome to Mitch McConnell's retirement party!" she says, beaming, softening her often-intense face. When serious, Grimes' features - close-set eyes and strong jawline - resemble her feisty dad, Jerry Lundergan, a former state representative and Kentucky Democratic Party chair. Supporters cheer her on. As the parade walks onto the picnic grounds' bristle grass, a chant erupts: "I believe that she will win!" At this point, the first weekend in August, the race is neck and neck.

Grimes and her entourage end up in an ashy hut with a long yellow table. Men are hacking into slabs of pork and mutton. Grimes dons black rubber gloves and a blue apron. She pushes her thick auburn-brown hair between her shoulder blades and picks up a meat cleaver. "What time did y'all get here this morning?" she asks the workers, before chopping at meat lying in front of her. The former college sorority president is a toucher, a hugger, a close-talker - a smile and squeeze for willing takers. "You won't find anyone more sincere or more down to earth," says Grimes' oldest of five sisters, Alissa Tibe. "We always knew she'd do something really great and really cool." The Grimes style differs from her opponent, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Today he will swoop in and out of Fancy Farm like an OB/GYN at birthing time, arriving shortly before his speech and exiting once he delivers it.

Grimes changes to a sleeveless navy dress with four large buttons down the front for her Fancy Farm speech. At the podium, she opens a white binder and punches her words for exactly the eight minutes allotted. "Mitch McConnell doesn't care. I DO!" she cries. Thunderous boos from McConnell supporters don't shake her. Her best lines: "Thirty-five is my age. That's also Sen. Mitch McConnell's approval rating." Then there's the one that makes it into the New York Times: "If Mitch McConnell were a TV show, he'd he Mad Men: treating women unfairly, stuck in 1968 and ending this season!"

Fancy Farm is my first of six stops on the Grimes campaign trail. Pundits and political reporters say it's a good show for her. But they repeat other things too. She's evasive on policy questions, adhering to talking points, a bit of a fuzzy character. Even a Grimes supporter passing out "Alison" stickers at Fancy Farm acknowledges the candidate's vagueness. Your number-one objective is to get someone to vote for you," says Saundra Ardrey, an outgoing 60-year-old from Bowling Green who is also the head of Western Kentucky University's political science department.

"And perhaps the less you say, (one) can infer that that person believes what I believe." Do voters buy it? Some do. I meet a tobacco-chewing, unemployed machinist who has latched onto Grimes because he says Grimes has "fresh ideas" about the economy. But a lot of voters may want to know more about who they're committing to for the next six years. Next month, when Grimes will start to fall behind in many polls, her campaign will release an internal poll - the one meant to revive and refresh her chances. It shows that only 38 percent of voters view Grimes' job performance as secretary of state as favorable, just above McConnell's 32 percent job-approval mark, a number she jabbed at Fancy Farm.

Grimes 101.

Her advantage: She's not Mitch McConnell at a time when America holds Congress in very low regard. She's good at raising money. She's young, female, lively - a stark contrast to the 72-year-old McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984.

Her problem: Grimes is running as a Democrat in a state that hates Obama. In the 2012 election, Obama won only four of Kentucky's 120 counties. A Democrat hasn't held a Senate scat since Wendell Ford was re-elected in 1992.

Her resume: In 2001 Grimes graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, with a bachelor's degree in political science. Law School at American University in Washington, D.C. Practiced law in Lexington for seven years, focusing on business litigation. Grimes was the top vote-getter on the 2011 ballot when she ran for secretary of state, winning the position with 61 percent of the vote. (Kentucky voters don't mind Democrats in state government. It's at the federal level that they've been leaning Republican.)

The landscape: The 2010 Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United paved the way for super PACs to accept unlimited contributions from corporations and unnamed donors. With more cash to spend, TV ads now dominate elections. According to a recent Center for Public Integrity report, nearly $12 million paid for 37,500 ads played on Kentucky television through August. Themes range from who loves coal the most to who is the most corrupt. McConnell relentlessly barrages airwaves with the message Grimes = Obama. And in case you haven't heard, this race is projected to wind up as the most expensive Senate race in history, possibly reaching a total of $100 million.

Her campaign song: Seems to be Katy Perry's "Roar."

Her team: 1) A petite blond 20-something named Charly Norton. Originally from Michigan, she is Grimes' press spokesperson, who diligently blasts media with three to six mails a day about McConnell's latest blunder. 2) A talkative 30-something who probably doesn't sleep - Jonathan Hurst, her campaign manger. (He helped run her secretary of state campaign.) 3) A tall bearded man who steps in front of cameras at press gatherings after a few minutes with declarations like, "We got to go. Time to get the secretary back to Frankfort." He's her security guard and driver. I think his name is Matt. There are others too. But I see these three folks a lot.

Her signature move: Dropping in names of folks she's met on the trail. For example, during Fancy Farm: "It's not a minimum wage; it's a living wage that Kentuckians like Mike Teagarden from Knox County need and deserve."

A Grimes stump speech goes something like this:

One of us represents the Washington establishment. One of us represents Kentucky. One of us represents the past. One of us represents the future. Who is Mitch McConnell? "Senator Gridlock" Loving on millionaires and billionaires. Doesn't want to bring jobs to Kentucky. Keeps students drowning in debt. Pushes to bankrupt seniors by increasing Medicare costs. Doesn't show up to committee meetings so he can schmooze with millionaires and billionaires. Thinks women should get paid less. Oh - and he voted against the Violence Against Women Act! Twice! I am not Obama. I am not an empty dress. Tam not a rubber stamp. T am not a cheerleader. I'm a strong independent Kentucky woman. And I don't scare easy! Bipartisan teamwork? Love it. I will fight to protect: coal, farms, women, students, hardworking Kentuckians, grandmamas and grandbabies, collective bargaining. Did I mention coal?

Alison Case Lundergan was born three months premature at a hospital overlooking the river town of Maysville, Kentucky. It was 'Thanksgiving evening, 1978. The Lundergan clan had driven one hour northeast to Maysville from their home in Lexington to spend the holiday in the small town where Jerry Lundergan and his wife Charlotte had grown up and their parents still lived. At birth, Alision weighed less than two pounds. The family bought a doll that could fit in an adult hand to remember how small she was. She spent months in the NICU. She likes to say that's where her fighting spirit began.

Grimes is the third of the five sisters. All have names beginning with the letter "A." As in many families with a cluster of same-sex siblings, each earned a label. Abby was the social butterfly. Alissa was the dedicated equestrian, tending to rescued horses the family kept on their farm. Alison was the focused one. She was organized, quiet, driven, competitive, be it in school or ballet, to which she dedicated much of her childhood.

Jerry Lundergan won a Kentucky House seat in 1979 and eventually served as chairman of Kentucky's Democratic Party. Grimes says their household - a loud, close-knit, Catholic bunch - treated Election Day "almost like Christmas." While most kids had the day off, the Lundergan girls were reading precinct lists, working phone banks and, as teenagers, giving voters rides to the polls.

Ask those who know Lundergan well about the now 67-year-old, and they often chuckle and hesitate with a "how do I say this?" pause. A few of the descriptions: an old poi, glad-handing, fast-talking. Maysville Mayor David Cartmell, who grew up with Lundergan, says, "All you need to know about Jerry is that he grew up on a carnival midway." As a boy, Lundergan helped his parents sell lemonade and hot dogs at carnivals and fairs. Eventually he and his brothers turned his parents business into a catering/event-services empire. Along with catering fancy affairs, Lundergan's company serves boxed lunches to workers at natural disasters.

As a public speaker, Lundergan has a preacher quality to him - flapping arms and a decibel that makes his "Ps" pop at the microphone. In a conversation with Grimes' sister Alissa about her sibling's decision to follow her dad into public office, Tibe mentioned that the family had seen the "good and bad side of politics." When Grimes was 10 years old, her father was convicted on ethics charges after his catering company was awarded a lucrative no-bid state contract. He was forced to resign from the General Assembly. The conviction was later overturned on appeal. Grimes told the New York Times the experience toughened her.

Lundergan's blue-collar upbringing and emphasis on loyalty earned him a powerful friend in Bill Clinton. In the '80s when Clinton was governor of Arkansas, the two Southern Democrats became close. (Lundergan's company catered Chelsea Clinton's wedding.) Grimes has a picture of herself at 14 years old, presenting a bouquet of roses to President Clinton during his 1993 inauguration. Now he's lending her a hand.

Bill Clinton has made two visits to Kentucky to help stump for Grimes, a self-proclaimed Clinton Democrat. (Never an Obama Democrat.) Whereas Grimes' speaking style can sound lawyer-y and rehearsed, often over-enunciating and falling into a rickety cadence, Clinton is smooth. At a stop in rural Hazard, he drips with the "y'alls." At a fundraiser in Lexington (starting ticket price: $200), underneath chandeliers and before 43 tables dressed in white linens, he's classic Clinton - swagger and husky-voiced, words bubbling forth like a spa. I really do love Kentucky," he purrs. "When people said no Democrat could carry Kentucky in a general election, you voted for me twice. I appreciated that." He smiles. "You like proving the experts wrong. When people said Hillary was a washed-up candidate, you voted for her by 37 points (in the 2008 primary) .... I appreciated that. Not that 1 was following the vote closely." I actually hear a woman coo. I write in my notebook: Caramel melting of plated cheesecake. To be fair, I'm not sure if this observation is a reflection of Clinton or hunger.

It's a humid Labor Day morning. Sunny skies erupt into a downpour.

The rain ends by lunch, and Grimes arrives at the Louisville Zoo with press spokesperson Norton. Polls released a few days ago show Grimes slipping about four percentage points behind. The narrative in the press is that McConnell's gaining momentum. Grimes wears a big smile and her casual getup - jeans, cowboy boots, orange button-down shirt, hair pulled back into a slick ponytail. The occasion is the Greater Louisville United Labor Day Picnic, with union members feasting on hot dogs and potato salad. They tote toddlers in strollers and drag along bored teens. It's mostly a staunchly Democratic bunch.

Before winding through hundreds, maybe thousands, of picnickers, Grimes makes time for a tall, wiry man grazing the terrain with a cocksure air and nice gray slacks. A photographer whispers to me, "Carl Cameron from Fox News." Microphone in hand, Cameron leans into Grimes with a rambler: "Here you are, facing the most powerful Republican arguably in Washington and or the Senate .... Uh, this is obviously a tremendous responsibility and a tough race. So you guys are both pounding each other. You gotta keep a smile on your face because it's Labor Day. It's a holiday. So set the stage for us."

Grimes, wide grin intact, slips into stump-speak. Her light blue eyes never lose contact with Cameron or whomever she's talking to. "Well, we have 64 more days to make sure Kentuckians know all the wrong votes Mitch McConnell has taken left hardworking Kentuckians behind ... promises to millionaires and billionaires ... Kentucky needs a fighter in Washington."

Grimes' reputation for avoiding the press isn't accurate if taken literally. She allows reporters to ask her questions. She'll often cock her head gently to the right and answer, sort of "She's basically following the Mitch McConnell model of, when you do take questions that you don't want to answer, you fall hack on your talking points," says Joe Sonka, a blogger and longtime political writer currently working for the website Insider Louisville. Spontaneous Q&As are rare, if ever. After a Rotary Club luncheon I attended at the Galt House, an elderly member grumbled in the hallway. Grimes spoke to the crowd but didn't allow for Q&A time, which is the tradition at these luncheons. "There's no reason not to take questions," the man said. "She's the first."

Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at the Cook Political Report, says the Grimes campaign hasn't granted interviews to non-partisan newsletters like hers or the Rothenberg Political Report. Duffy says that's unusual for a candidate in such a high-stakes race. "Campaigns will say they're disciplined," Duffy says. "Bur that's a red flag for me." (Grimes spokesperson Norton says the campaign is focused on Kentucky.)

At the zoo, Grimes begins to work the crowd. I lose count of all the hands she shakes and photos she poses for. Cell phones and cameras keep popping out of pockets. There must be a couple thousand images of Grimes from this one hour at the zoo. "You ready fin a fun day?" she asks him and her, this group and that. After a few teen girls go in for a hug ("I love that!" Grimes says. "I need all the hugs I can get!"), Grimes spots an infant in a gray-and-pink stroller. She picks up the chubby bundle in a white onesie. The baby's father, a slight man with thin strips of facial hair, smiles next to Grimes for a photo. As she walks away, he looks at a woman next to him and says, "I think I've seen her on TV."

Grimes attempts to pluck a stand-up bass with a bluegrass band. She hoists another baby into her arms. She poses for a picture in front of a UFCW 227 trailer, then hops into a shot with the Teamsters Local 89. "One, two, three, go teamsters!" the huddle cheers. Her energy isn't manic, but with one 5-hour Energy shot, it might be. This is the side of politics Grimes loves.

At one point Grimes bends down to a couple, Heather and Frank Cox, who arc eating chips on a curb. Heather wears an "I HEART TEACHERS" sticker.

"Hi, guys! Good to see you! I heart teachers too. Thanks, guys," Grimes says.

Frank's a libertarian. Heather's an independent with conservative leanings. "I vote for whoever is going to do what they need to do," she says. "I know what (McConnell) goes for but nut really what she goes for."

Grimes is still a relatively new face to Kentucky politics. Al Cross, a veteran Courier Journal political reporter and columnist, says that without giving undecided voters a better idea of who she is, they may have no reason to swing her way. He calls her "the most careful" Democratic candidate he's ever seen in Kentucky politics. So when a potential "scandal" brews, voters are more likely to store it in their memory What else do they know? "It's not about who voters like," Duffy of the Cook Political Report says. "It's about who they trust." In August, local and national media reported that the Grimes campaign was renting her bus from her father's company at a questionably low rate. McConnell's campaign trumpeted this as a "sweetheart deal." Grimes also fueled naysayers when she told reporters she would denounce the EPA's regulations on coal emissions during a speech at a fundraiser hosted by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Audio surfaced showing she did not. Her campaign said Reid and Grimes spoke privately.

"Yarmuth! John!" Grimes claps her hands before squeezing the Democratic Congressman's shoulders. "Look at you!" she says. He's dressed in neon-orange running shoes, jeans and an orange polo. Together, they continue through the crowd. Back before Grimes was chosen as McConnell's Democratic opponent, Yarmuth championed Ashley Judd, the outspoken, far-left liberal actress and activist. "I had two networks tell me that if she ran they'd dedicate crews to the candidates for the entire campaign," Yarmuth says. "And of course I want cameras in Mitch McConnell's face every day." The powers-that-be deemed Judd too risky

Since then, Yarmuth has helped bring Grimes up to speed on national and international issues. "She's incredibly bright - very quick," he says.

A few minutes later, I run into Grimes' campaign manager, Jonathan Hurst. Sporting long-weekend scruff, loafers and shorts, he entertains a few questions about what Grimes is like. "Alison isn't a politician," he says. "(She) really cares about people." He riffs on that for a while. He mentions Grimes' "detailed" jobs plan. The campaign likes to do this. "It's 20 pages," Norton says to me one day, touting its heft. (Side note about the jobs plan. It is a document that advocates for increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 and eliminating the pay gap between men and women. Most of it contains brief snippets beneath bolded titles: "Rebuild Kentucky's manufacturing sector" and "Expand investment for clean coal technology." Lacking: the cost of such programs and details on how to pay for them.)

As Hurst scrolls through his phone, I ask for an interesting nugget about Grimes. One that few know. "She loves red Swedish Fish," he says.

Grimes' friends talk effusively about her. She's in this race because she longs to make a difference, they say. Law colleagues bring up her pro-bono work with domestic violence victims. State Rep. Joni Jenkins, a Louisville Democrat, likes to tell a story from the 2013 General Assembly. With an hour left to go before the session closed at midnight, Grimes was still in her secretary of state office wrangling with Republicans, who Grimes believed had weakened a bill that would improve voting access to military members overseas. "I was so taken by her persistence," Jenkins says, adding that Grimes ultimately agreed to a compromise Republicans offered.

Mary Rose Browder met Grimes the first week of law school. The two were usually the first ones in the library and the last ones out. (Browder names her friend's fuel of choice at the time: chicken salad sandwiches and candy.) Grimes isn't all serious. She's fun to sit down and have a beer with, Browder says. Grimes loves University of Kentucky basketball. Another friend tells me she has a "dry wit." One of Browder's favorite stories involves Grimes' wedding day, when her husband Andrew fainted at the altar. The bride didn't freak out. She tended co Andrew and once the timing felt right joked with her guests, something along the lines of "if you didn't want to marry me...." (During an afternoon spent watching YouTube videos, I came across the making of a popular Grimes ad from her secretary of state race. It features her with her two elderly grandmothers. When Grimes realizes one of them is chewing gum during filming, she teases, "Gum chewer!" Her grandma replies, "Killsport!" They laugh. Grimes has a great laugh - hearty and loud.) Browder mentions Grimes' poise. An elegant maturity, down to the glittery ladybug pin - a family heirloom - she'll sometimes clip to her collar for good luck.

I had asked way hack at Fancy Farm for a sit-down interview with Grimes. A few failed attempts later, it's finally happening on a crisp September morning. The campaign had offered to let me ask her a few questions at the labor Day picnic. Bur her press availability is usually compressed to a few minutes. I decided it would be unfair to gobble time with questions like, "How do you start your day? Favorite book?" Stuff I was interested in but might make Carl Cameron vomit.

I'm waiting in a small conference room with perspiring pitchers of water, deep-green carpeting and heavy maroon drapes. Norton, the spokesperson, sits next to me.

Someone knocks at the door. "We're here," says the tall security man. Norton rushes away. I had read that Grimes gave just over seven minutes to lime. I scramble to prioritize questions. Do I waste time on policy questions, I've heard the stock answers to before? I'm curious about the person, not the politician. Start with fluff?

"Hi!" Grimes says, smiling as she walks in. "How are you?" She shakes my hand. I notice her glossy gray nail polish. And the ladybug pin fastened to her white blazer. The grip isn't as firm as I was expecting.

I learn she has six nephews and nieces and a 100-pound Bernese Mountain Dog named Nala who's now eight years old. She met her husband in high school. They went to her senior prom together and danced to Van Morrison's "Moondance." She was fluted to quit ballet after attempting a dance routine with a high-school friend. "I went for a toe touch up in the air and landed on my tailbone," Grimes says, laughing. "It was not fun." She's a former kickbox instructor. A "creature of habit," she starts her day with a run most mornings. Grimes thought about becoming a doctor but, while shadowing a hand surgeon, passed out during a six-minute carpal-tunnel surgery.

I ask about the pressure of this campaign. (The race will only get increasingly nasty as Election Day draws closer. Still, "This race is bigger than she is," her sister Alissa told me. Before announcing her candidacy last year, Grimes had reservations. She hadn't finished her first term in office. She wants to have a family. She discussed her concerns with mentors, including Rep. Jenkins and the Clinton.) "I think the eyes of the nation are watching what happens in Kentucky. There's an extreme amount of pressure," she says, before pivoting to talking points. "I think that Kentucky and indeed the nation are ready for someone who can actually get Washington working again ... promises to millionaires and billionaires.... And the people here in Kentucky, my name is on the ballot, but their backs, their blood, their sweat, their tears are in this for me."

My mind wanders a bit. I've heard that "blood, sweat and tears" line somewhere before. 'The Labor Day picnic, I think.

I ask about what it was like growing up in the Lundergan family. "When we were younger, we would go from my grandparents' clothing store (Case's Men's Wear) to my grandmother, who worked with the sheriffs department. Walking downtown back when downtowns were obviously vibrant" - her voice hardens - "as they should be to this day, if we had someone who fought for Main Street instead of Wall Street...."

My mind wanders a bit. Norton tells me I have two minutes left. "Do you believe burning coal leads to climate change?" I ask.

"I do believe in climate change. I do believe in the realities of climate change, unlike Mitch McConnell," she says. "I think we have to have a balanced approach ... we have to have somebody who goes and fights for the good jobs that we have in this state, including the coal jobs, but somebody who wants to make sure we have a diversified economy and a pathway forward."

I want to ask about income inequality, abortion (she's pro-choice) and gay marriage (she supports it but with cagey language). I want to ask in a really casual, chilling-with-a-cold-pint kind of way: "So, how about Obama?"

Norton wraps up our rime. Sixteen minutes 20 seconds.

"Favorite movie?" I ask.

"Shawshank Redemption," Grimes says, slamming her hands on the table. "Favorite book?"

"Oh, that's hard," she says, getting up to leave the room.

"One you're reading now?"

"Hillary Clinton's book - Hard Choices."

On the morning of Sept. 9, the western third of Kentucky hides beneath a heavy smear of fog. This is where Grimes will begin her day, stopping into Lyon County's public library in Eddyville for a breakfast meet-and-greet. Also there, a 46-year veteran of Eddyville's Herald Ledger newspaper: Bobbie Foust, who is dressed in a turquoise blouse and pants, with matching bangle bracelets. With her glasses, sensible white slip-on shoes and white hair, age makes Foust look as intimidating as a teacup. But she's no-nonsense. When asked about industry in Lyon County, a swath of land surrounded by lakes, she replies, "Farming. Prisons. Tourism." (The county's population of 9,000 can increase to 50,000 come summer rime. Lyon County is also home to two state prisons and rich, red soil good for farming.)

By the time Grimes reaches the library, her supporters have neatly piled glazed doughnuts into a basket, bundled orange daisies into a vase and placed Sweet'n Low in glass dishes. About 60 locals pile into a room in the library lined with arrowheads in glass cases. Coffee plunges into Styrofoam cups. A reporter from Switzerland sets up his camera next to a photographer from Paducah.

This is an outlying county Grimes could theoretically win. While the latest polls have shown her getting hammered in rural western and eastern Kentucky counties, Lyon County has far more registered Democrats than Republicans. In 2008 McConnell beat Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford here by only 168 votes. But the county overwhelmingly voted for McCain and Romney in the last two presidential elections. (In May's primary election against three opponents with basically zero funding, Grimes earned about 69 percent of the vote in Lyon County. In Martin County, a small coal county, Grimes received 55 percent of the vote.)

Outside the library, compact, one-story brick ranches tuck into gentle rolling hills; single-story government buildings boast lawns as tidy as a cadet's buzz cut. An older brunette with a blue Grimes shirt and bright pink lips wipes doughnut glaze from the corner of her mouth and informs me that if I went closer to the lakes, I'd see wealth. "We have a lot of people moving here from Indiana, and they're Republicans," she begins. "So I don't have any way of knowing what's going to happen."

Lifelong Lyon County residents - not just transplants - vote Republican too. Just behind the library, Mitch Coomer puts on a white pharmacist jacket and trims hair, unaware Grimes is in town. He's soft-spoken, a few flecks of gray in his goatee. Mitch's Barber Shop is in a boxy brick building Coomer splits with an insurance agent. The walls are wood-paneled. The Ten Commandments hang above Coomer's mirror. He's pro-McConnell. While Lyon County is not a coal county, he says that's an important issue to him. Plus, he's a conservative. "McConnell's easily the more conservative of the two," Coomer says.

Grimes' speech is fairly standard, executed loudly as she stands in shiny beige heels and a black dress, one dump of hair over her left shoulder - the way she wears it in nearly all ads and on all campaign stops. Grimes elevates her tone when she eludes to an audio tape of a speech McConnell made to the Koch brothers, the billionaire industrialists who have pumped money into Republican campaigns. On the tape, McConnell vows to block votes on boosting the minimum wage and extending unemployment if he becomes majority leader. "He'll choose the millionaires and billionaires," Grimes starts. And when a cell phone rings, she shifts. "And that's him calling right now because he's asking for your vote!"

The crowd laughs, applauds.

"Don't listen to the outside polls out of Kentucky. The polls in this state, what they show you all know in this standing-room crowd," she says to the room, with maybe 15 chairs for 60 people. "This race is neck and neck!"

"So, Lyon County, will we stand united? Let me hear you say, 'Yes!'"

"Yes!"

The Herald Ledger's Foust says Grimes is well-liked in this county. She visited it during her secretary of state campaign. In the next few weeks, she'll keep circling the state. Meanwhile, national pundits will grapple with what she's doing wrong. They'll tell her to hype up the 500,000 Kentuckians who now have health insurance due to the Affordable Care Act. They'll applaud an ad that shows her skeet shooting in a field and declaring, "I'm not Barack Obama. I disagree with him on guns, coal and the EPA." They'll dissect a debate scheduled to take place on KET this month.

Notebook in hand, Foust walks up to Grimes, bypassing Charly Norton, who traditionally acts as the gateway to post-event interviews. Foust turns on her recorder and starts her questions. In heels, Grimes stands about 5 feet 10 inches. That puts Foust at barely Grimes' shoulders. She listens as Grimes reiterates that the race is still close. "I think the person who's behind always looks on the optimistic side, and that's fine," Foust tells me later. She also says that McConnell has earned widespread loyalty in Lyon County. He recently helped pass the Freedom to Fish Act, a two-year moratorium on an Army Corps of Engineers plan to restrict fishing in waters near dams, a move that could've damaged tourism here.

"Oh, is that what Grimes was talking about when she was telling you something about the EPA and farming?" I ask Foust, having overheard part of the interview.

"She talked about farming," Foust says, smiling. "But I didn't really ask about farming."