Just a rumor at this point, but there seams to be substantial talk that Mitch McConnell is retiring.
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has been out of the public eye for weeks, following a serious fall that hospitalized him. Now multiple sources confirm that Senators John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota are actively reaching out to fellow Republican senators in efforts to prepare for an anticipated leadership vote — a vote that would occur upon announcement that McConnell would be retiring from his duties as leader, and presumably the Senate itself.
One source says that Cornyn has been particularly active in his preparations, taking fellow senators with whom he has little in common to lunch in attempts to court them.
Requests are being targeted at a plethora of conservative senators, including the sixteen who voted to delay the leadership election earlier this year, a proxy for opposition to McConnell’s leadership. Rick Scott, the Florida senator and former NRSC head who challenged McConnell, ultimately received ten protest votes. These members could prove key to determining the next Republican leader. Queries are also being made internally about the rules regarding replacement, and how the contest would be structured given the lack of an obvious heir apparent.
McConnell fell at a dinner event for the Senate Leadership Fund on March 8 at the Waldorf Astoria, formerly the Trump Hotel, in Washington, DC. He suffered a concussion, and only after being treated at a hospital and at his home did murmurs begin that he might be unable to return to the Senate. These discussions increased in volume based on the inability of other senators to do their jobs — with California’s Dianne Feinstein missing votes due to a shingles diagnosis and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania’s hospitalization for depression.
McConnell has guided the Republican Senate since 2007, and his role at the top of the party has been enormously significant.
Indeed.
This link comes from Ace of Spades, who is quite enthusiastic about McConnell being shown the door. “You need to spend some more time with your Chinese donors and corporate bagmen, Mitch.”
I’m a bit more sanguine.
The job of the Senate Majority/Minority leader is to be the hated asshole. (Lyndon Baines Johnson is widely regarded as the most effective Senate leader of the 20th century, and he was an absolute fucking tool.) Herding cats in the Senate requires the leader to be the heavy, and the balancing act means that partisans will always be disappointed in a leader’s actions. After all, disappointment is steeped into the Senate by design, as the cold saucer to cool the hot tea of the House.
Cornyn is one of my senators, and I’m not enthused about him taking office. Scott would be better. Thune used to be solid but has turned squishy. I don’t know much about Barrasso, but his Heritage Action rating (a quick-and-dirty rating, but better than nothing) is 85%, which seems low for Wyoming.
Whoever does replace McConnell as GOP leader in the Senate, it’s almost a certainty that we’ll be comparing him unfavorably to McConnell within a year.
It’s the nature of the job.
Tags: John Barrasso, John Cornyn, John Thune, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Mitch McConnell, Republicans, Rick Scott
Retiring ain’t happening.
The only way McConnell leave his leadership position is toes-up, wheeled out on a gurney. The geriocracy will continue until they die off.
If his colleagues really want him out they need to push harder at the next hotel function he attends
Ace is right he needs to go. These guys come from a different America where there was enough philosophical homogeneity between our political differences that honor was still respected and logic/reason on how to do things across the aisle could carry the day.
It’s not coming back. It started in the 2000 election and it’s been getting worse ever since. The old honorable GOP way of doing things has turned it into the victim in the prisoner’s dilemma with an opposition that does nothing but consistently defect.
We need fighters. They need to be ruthless. The GOP needs to focus on the way the world is, not the way it once was.
As a KY resident, I do believe the end is coming, but not now. The Republican primary for governor is soon. I have always believed that Daniel Cameron was the Turtles hand picked replacement. He is leading the governors race.
Cornyn. Talk about deep state.
Good riddance for him. IMHO, he is the reason why the Senate did a lackluster job in electing Repub senators on 2020. IIRC, he basically cut funding from those Senators that the Donald endorsed.
As a parallel, the House leadership enthusiastically endorsed all the House candidates and thus won the House seats.
Shortly before the GA 2021 Senate runoff election, McConnell brought to vote a “Covid bill” that had money for all the Democrats’ priorities, and essentially nothing for normal Americans.
So normal American voters stayed home during the GA runoffs, and the Dems swept the two seats and took control of the Senate
As McConnell wanted.
A couple weeks before the 2022 General Election, Lindsey Graham, buddy of McConnell, introduced into the US Senate a nationwide abortion ban. A bill whose only purpose could be to encourage Democrats to get out and vote as if their religion of abortion depended upon it
A week before the GA runoff, McConnell announced the GOP was going to give the Democrats enough votes in the Senate to get a bunch of Democrat priorities passed before the new Senate took over. Thus again successfully suppressing GOP GA turnout, and getting the Democrat to victory
McConnell believes that defeating the GOP voters is more important than defeating the Democrats.
There can be other “Republicans” taking over the leadership who are just as bad as McConnell. But there can be no one worse, because McConnell was our enemy and effective,
None of the above happened because McConnell was played by the Dems. They all happened because McConnell’s goals were not our goals, and were not the goals of ANY CONCEIVABLE pro-Republican Senate leader.
It was and is McConnell’s goal to make sure the Democrats could get whatever they wanted without needing to negotiate with the Republicans.
Him leaving would be a positive win
The “cold saucer” aspect went out the window when the 17th Amendment was ratified, one of the so-called “progressive” amendments.
In the original design, the House, elected by popular vote, was intended to reflect popular will & interests while the Senate, elected by the states’ legislatures, was meant to reflect the states’ interests, thus balancing them.
However the 17th Amendment destroyed that balance by making the Senate popularly elected as well, just with a longer term for office holders.
Bad idea.