Phillip M. Bailey

In the Indiana Senate race, Republican Richard Mourdock launched his first television ad of the general election on Wednesday, attacking Democrat Joe Donnelly for supporting health care reform.

The 30-second spot features Mourdock looking directly at the camera and promising to vote for a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. The state treasurer goes on to say that President Obama's  overhaul will hurt small businesses, raise taxes and cuts Medicare by $500 billion.

Check it out:

Democratic strategist Paul Begala and Republican commentator Bill Kristol were in Louisville on Tuesday evening to discuss the ongoing presidential campaign at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s annual business summit.

Polling numbers shows President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are locked in a tight race this fall with a small margin of undecided voters. The negative attacks are beginning to escalate with both campaigns accusing the other of misleading voters. 

Political observers note that Mr. Obama has run harsh ads against his GOP challenger on television, which is unusual for an incumbent president seeking re-election.

Begala a CNN analyst and  an adviser for Priorities USA, a super PAC supporting the president. He says Mr. Obama needs to run as a challenger who will outline what the next four years will hold if he is re-elected.

"When times are tough and the president tells you, ‘I’ve done a great job’ people get resentful. They say ‘really, cause I’m still hurting out here.’ What I would do instead is lay out my agenda for a second-term and run as if he were a challenger," he says. "I’m all for attacking Romney and I’m doing it full-time. But he’s also got to say what I can’t do, which is here’s what I will do if you give me this job for the next four years."

In the Third District Congressional race, independent candidate Robert L. DeVore Jr. has filed to run against Republican Brooks Wicker and Democratic incumbent John Yarmuth in the fall election.

DeVore ran for Congress in the GOP primary in 2008 under a conservative platform that sought to make English the country's primary language and separate Social Security from the federal budget.

At the time he released a rather bizarre campaign announcement video explaining his views.

Check it out:

An ordinance before the Louisville Metro Council would require restaurants to post nutrition information on their menus.

Council President Jim King, D-10, and Councilwoman Vicki Aubrey Welch, D-13, are sponsoring the bill.

It requires businesses that have caloric and other nutrition information available to post that information on their menus or on a menu board located in the restaurant. The ordinance would only apply to businesses that have the information available.

Welch is chairwoman of the health, education and housing committee. She says the law will give residents the needed information to make better choices.

"I want consumers to be able to choose what they’re eating and putting into their bodies. I think they deserve to know what they’re purchasing. So many people are health conscious now about what they’re eating," she says.

A bill that would require Super PACs to release their donor list was defeated due to a Republican filibuster led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has been a vocal opponent of the legislation.

The DISCLOSE (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections) Act failed by a 51-to-44 vote, falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Since last month, McConnell has ripped the legislation as a form of intimidation being led by the Obama administration.

Local and national critics, including U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., have pounced on McConnell's opposition, pointing out that he once supported the idea of full transparency.

From The Daily Beast:

Originally, conservatives like Mitch McConnell who backed the money-is-speech position offered the consolation prize of radical transparency and instant disclosure for all election-related spending, including independent expenditures.

But now such a proposal represents, in McConnell’s words, an attempt to “protect unpopular Democrat politicians by silencing their critics and exempting their campaign supporters from an all-out attack on the First Amendment.”

Congressman Ben Chandle, D-Ky., supports President Barack Obama in the fall election, but needs to focus on his own re-election rather than attend the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte later this year.

Last week, Chandler's campaign told WFPL that he was skipping the event. Since critics have pounced the central Kentucky representative for snubbing the president and running away from his own voting record.

In the Indiana governor's race, Republican Congressman Mike Pence is ahead of Democrat John Gregg in fundraising totals by $2.5 million.

Pence reported raising $3 million in the second quarter, which gives the GOP contender over $5.5 million in cash on hand. Gregg, a former Indiana House speaker, garnered around $1.8 million and has $3 million in his campaign coffers.

The Pence campaign has been running television ads since May and it highlighted the number of Indiana contributors .

"Mike Pence will continue to take his vision for making Indiana the state that works to Hoosiers through grassroots meetings, policy announcements and television," campaign manager Kyle Robertson said in a news release.

In the Indiana Ninth congressional district race, Democrat Shelli Yoder has filed a tepid fundraising report.

Yoder is a political newcomer and she brought in just over $93,000 in the second quarter of this year. She faces Republican incumbent Todd Young, who garnered $311,000 in the same period. According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, Yoder has $73,000 total on hand, compared to the nearly $900,000 in Young’s coffers.

The Louisville Metro Ethics Commission still cannot compel witnesses to testify, which could impact a possible hearing involving Councilwoman Barbara Shanklin.

Over the past year the commission has addressed a number of procedural and policy weaknesses it discovered during the course of two hearings against former Councilwoman Judy Green. The panel has since hired a full-time legal counsel and requested the council tinker with parts of the city code of ethics.

But in its 2011 annual report the commission said the lack of subpoena powers remains a serious challenge to its ability to enforce the law and is ultimately a question of state law that the General Assembly must address.

"At this point in time without that power people come voluntarily and provide testimony on their own," says Ethics Commission Chairman Jonathan Ricketts. "And without being able to compel their attendance we’re limited in what we can bring and evaluate."

In the 2012 presidential race Kentucky is assuredly in the Republican column, but President Barack Obama will be in the commonwealth briefly today—to visit Ohio.

The president is scheduled to hold a campaign event in Cincinnati and Air Force One will touchdown in the city's airport, which is in Erlanger, Kentucky. According to the White House, Mr. Obama will outline a plan to restore the middle-class, paying down our debt and grow the national economy.