Hey, I'm Kelly McEvers, and this is Embedded from NPR.

And where we last left off in our series about Mitch McConnell, it was 1984.

McConnell was the unknown Republican trying to beat a popular Democrat, and with the help

of Roger Ailes, he managed to win a seat in the United States Senate by only 5,000 votes.

30 years later...

Are you having a good time?

Life is very different from Mitch McConnell.

It's 2014, and he is just won that Senate seat for the sixth time.

We can have real change in Washington, real change.

And one way he has done it is to spend lots and lots of money.

Almost twice as much as his opponent, and one of the most expensive campaigns in the country.

He ran a very smart campaign, a very expensive campaign.

He took nothing from him.

And a lot of money came from new sources.

And the inside money has been flowing into the state of America.

Super PACs and nonprofits that a few years earlier didn't even exist.

Groups that funded attack ad after attack ad against McConnell's opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes.

These were not funny ads with bloodhounds.

Grimes endorsed Obama's party platform is war on coal, Obamacare, their plan, citizenship

for millions who broke the law.

Illegal immigrants would become eligible for taxpayer funded benefits, food stamps, unemployment,

even Medicare.

...