Meanwhile, McConnell told reporters on Wednesday that the democratic congress is partly responsible for high gasoline prices because they've refused to approve his measure to open up oil drilling off the American coastline and in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Lunsford also opposes that move. And McConnell says placing a windfall profits tax on oil companies, as Lunsford and the two democratic candidates for president want to do, will only prompt those companies to raise gas prices even higher.

On Lunsford's record as the head of the Vencor corporation, McConnell says Lunsford has been busy blaming everyone but himself for the financial troubles experienced by the nursing home company. Lunsford has said federal changes to the Medicare program cost Vencor and other health care companies billions of dollars. McConnell says those changes were part of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act passed by congress, so it's fair to ask Lunsford if he would have voted for that bill. Lunsford didn't give a direct answer to that question when asked by the Herald-Leader's Ryan Alessi.