McConnell Takes on Ashley Judd in New Web Video

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has launched a pre-emptive strike on potential Democratic challengers to his 2014 reelection, including Ashley Judd.

Judd is mulling a bid for the Senate, and her celebrity status already has made her the focus of Republican attack ads. American Crossroads, the SuperPAC launched by Karl Rove and others, last month introduced a web video collection of some of Judd's foibles, including declaring that Tennessee, and not Kentucky, is her home state.

McConnell's spot also repeats Judd talking up Tennessee, including a moment when she announced the state's roll call for Obama during last summer's Democratic National Convention, and another when she calls San Francisco her "American city home." The ad's premise is that Obama is fielding a list of contenders to challenge McConnell, who doesn't even appear in the web video.

Update: Judd has "done everything a serious candidate would do," Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) tells the New York Times. She may be a Hollywood liberal, but the Times' Trip Gabriel interviewed residents of Ashland, Ky. who seem open to the idea.