Posted on 08/14/2022 4:13:34 PM PDT by T Ruth
Many in the Republican conservative base have good reasons for disliking Senator McConnell. However, he is the leader of the Senate Republicans, making him the highest-ranking Republican in office. Republicans with more political power and a larger base are currently on the outside looking in. That can change. I would never pretend to know what is going on in my senior senator’s head, but I have observed him since the Reagan administration, so I know how he operates.
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Kentucky does not elect him as the Republican leader of the Senate. That is on the senators who vote for him as leader, many of whom are your senators. That is where Mitch McConnell’s Senate math becomes important. There are three specific aspects of this.
Both McConnell and Schumer have maximum political power when the balance of Senate power is very close. While the vestiges of the filibuster remain, this is where leadership can move or stop legislation. The reconciliation process can be used to move spending bills with simple majorities, but it is still a somewhat limited process. With a 50/50 Senate, all the power rests in the party leaders.
McConnell’s power lies with his ability to move the votes of squishy Republicans around to make deals. This is only possible when the Senate is very close or tied.
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We can beat the McConnell math. We must send as many Republicans as possible to the Senate. There is a disturbing trend that I see in comments. Some conservatives say that, because all Republicans are bad, it’s a waste of time to vote, and that we might as well just stay home. Mitch McConnell wants exactly that. The way to take power from McConnell is to elect enough Republican senators so that McConnell cannot control the caucus. ….
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“The way to take power from McConnell...”
The way to do it is to have several Republican senators refuse to caucus witn the GOP so long as McConnell remains the leader. That is a simple, foolproof way to depose him and probably the only way.
New Senate = D52 R 48.
I don’t think you need to worry about a majority leader.
Primaries don’t help when Trump endorses a RINO over a proven conservative candidate.
Just like the Demoncrats changed the old Democrat party into the Demoncrat party they have become.
Hopefully, we can affect the change in our party much quicker.
I say that as a lifelong Republican I might add. Trump opened my eyes as to how feckless they really are, and that the GOPe hates us as I have come to hate the GOPe, and why I delete their pols that are in reality just fund raising ploys.
You have to donate to them in order to submit your response. Otherwise, they are not the least bit interested in your opinions. I will no longer play that game.
This is less the Republican leadership losing their power with more Republicans, than it is the leadership being less beholden to the most liberal Republican in the Senate. Remember what John McCains' schitck was, make a deal with the more liberal dems in the senate, get enough republicans to go along with him to prevent the filibuster, while the dem he was working with (commonly Ted Kennedy) brought enough dems to guarantee that not going along with his deal means the bill will not have enough votes to pass.
Good point.
It's a snowball process. The further it proceeds, the faster it goes and the larger it is.
They are using the same strategy that destroyed the tea party….don’t vote and you play right into their plan. Mitch the Bitch won’t live forever….if the Dims win the rigged elections will continue to get worse. Let’s face it, they have been doing it for decades…keep the pressure on maximum!
Mitch McConnells strategy depends on people pretending he’s a republican
I’m not sure of your point. I voted in the primary for the proven conservative.
Romney, Collins, and Murkowski essentially control our caucus if there are less than 53 GOP Senators.
The way to take power from McConnell is to elect enough Republican senators so that McConnell cannot control the caucus. ….
Hmmmmm…..when the people of this country stop electing Thune, Rubio, Barasso, Cornyn, both Scott’s, Graham, Ernst, Capito, etc… things will change.
When the voters can, for once, get past voting on name recognition, voting for the Devil they know that repeatedly stabs them in the back, stop voting for whoever the RNC and state GOP machine puts in front of them, things might change.
Until then, status quo and there’s nothing the voters can do about it.
“…the leader of the Senate Republicans, making him the highest-ranking Republican in office.”
I would dispute that… there are Republicans who govern some pretty big states. And keep in mind, “Governor” is a true office, conferred by voters according to state Constitutions - whereas “minority leader” is not.
“Speaker”, “Leader”, “Whip” - these made-up party titles are not even mentioned in the Constitution, which imbues each Senator and each Representative with equal voting power.
Good points.
Awesome glad you voted….my point is simply don’t stay home, vote for the Republican candidate regardless….
First, 51 really isn't the magic number because squishy moderates are not 100% reliable. So you really need 53 or 54 Senators to ensure that you will always be able to get things through.
Second, sixty is just as important a number as fifty because that's the number that lets you pass things over a filibuster. It was having that magic 60 number for a few months that enable Obama to ran through Obamacare. And of course, sometimes you can even convince a couple of Democrats to vote with you, which means that having 58 or so Senators is close enough to 60 to be worthwhile.
Finally, senate elections are wildly unpredictable, and the forecast can change comparatively quickly depending upon outside events. In other words, considering that senate elections happen every two year, there is no way McConnell would surrender votes in one election because he has no idea what would happen in the next.
McConnell's flaw isn't that he will deliberately lose elections to stay closer to fifty. That's ridiculous. McConnell's flaw is that he will sometimes do almost anything to maximize the number of Republican senators, and that sometimes means compromising on issues where we wish he would not. Senate elections are far too unpredictable for McConnell to ever deliberately win fewer seats
I never stay home. But it ticks me off when the RINOs (like Katie Britt) support the democrat over the conservative if the GOPe candidate doesn’t win the primary (as she did with Doug Jones over Roy Moore).
So, what has she done to deserve my vote in November? NOTHING.
I rank him quite closely to Mitt Romney.
Shameful.
Remember in November!!
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