Alison's Biggest Liability Raises His Ugly Head: Daddy

There are lots of reasons why lots of Kentucky Democrats - Governor Steve Beshear first among us - heartily dislike Jerry Lundergan.

One is his slipperiness with finances. When he was chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party, he denied party financial information to dissident members of the state party committee. And what a coincidence it was that when Jerry was in charge, party events were always catered by the same company: Lundergan's.

So regardless of whether his daughter's campaign broke the rules on in-kind contributions in renting a campaign bus from Jerry, this story should surprise no one in Kentucky.

Following Republican demands for more information, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes disclosed additional information Tuesday about her campaign's use of a bus provided at seemingly discounted prices by her father's company.

Grimes, Kentucky's secretary of state, disputed a news report Monday night that questioned whether her campaign had accepted illegal in-kind contributions from the company owned by her father, former Kentucky Democratic Party chairman Jerry Lundergan.

Grimes campaign spokeswoman Charly Norton dismissed the article by Politico as a "hit-job from the McConnell campaign."

Lundergan, an influential presence in his daughter's campaign, bought the campaign's 45-foot bus through a company called Signature Special Event Services just as Grimes began campaigning last summer. 

 A Politico review of reports filed by the Grimes campaign with the Federal Election Commission found that through June, the campaign had paid $11,000 to rent the bus for 24 days. That works out to about $456 a day.