senate republicans

Red State is unhappy with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. (Note: I used to work in the Senate Republican Communications Center under Sen. McConnell.  Perhaps that biases me, or perhaps that gives me a unique viewpoint, but I'm trying to make an objective analysis of the landscape here)

The idea that Mitch McConnell is protecting us from the Democrats is bullcrap.  We should collectively rip off his jaw and shovel the crap back down his throat that he’s been serving us. [...] Mitch McConnell is privately screwing us just like Obama is doing to the left, but because he makes Harry Reid cry on queue, people love him.  It’s almost like Reid and Durbin know it and are happy to cry on cue if it means conservatives stay rallied to McConnell.

I really do appreciate Erick Erickson's frustration - the conflict between ideals and the politically possible is a particularly difficult tension for libertarians -  but Sen. McConnell is not the problem. The problem is a Senate an inch away from a 60-Democrat majority.  There is simply no way he can stop the Democrats.  That, not McConnell's personal preferences, is the important factor right now.  Sen. McConnell can either...

• Compromise, lose and cobble together the best deal we can get (sometimes on the proximate legislation, sometimes on other potential legislation), or...
• Be righteously indignant and go down in flames. Total defeat.

So, yeah, Senate Republicans are not protecting us from bad legislation.  Against almost 60 Senate Democrats, that's what you do.  You lose. 

Senators DeMint, Coburn and some others want to fight, and that's great. We need fighters...but we need the parliamentarians, the deal-makers, too.  The fact that individual members can pick fights does not mean the entire Senate Republican caucus can do so.

If a fighter was elevated to the Republican Leader position, one of two things would happen: (a) they would be unable to hold the Republican caucus together behind a tougher ideological agenda, or (b) they would be forced to moderate to hold the caucus together.

Some hills are certainly worth dying on, but the Senate Republicans can't all die on every hill.

Yes, McConnell isn't likely to lead a Republican revolution. But nobody is right now. Leadership is almost certainly going to come from the outside.  The Republican Congress is just trying to execute the best retreat possible.

A General gets to tell the troops where to go.  A Senate Minority Leader has to ask the troops where they want to go, and figure out how to do something with the many different answers.  Mitch McConnell's job is the art of the possible...and at the moment, very little is possible.

What is the relationship between these two stories from the Hill? Ted Stevens getting convicted of all counts for, in essence, corruption:

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican in history and patriarch of Alaska politics, was found guilty of all seven felony charges for making false statements.

John Ensign trying to blame John McCain for a disastrous Senate Republican showing:

Nevada Sen. John Ensign, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, on Monday said John McCain’s presidential run is making Senate races “more difficult” for the GOP.

They reflect a delusionally out-of-touch Senate establishment. On the same day that Ensign's colleague starts the march off to prison, he is blaming the guy who tried to clean up his own party. Could this be more out of touch?

By the way.  What is the job of the NRSC? Torecruit candidates and raise money. We are mostly playing defense. John Kennedy was a good recruit, but we don't have anyone in Arkansas. But how did they do on fundraising? Not so hot: "DSCC doubles NRSC funddraisng ... Again." Or "DSCC crushes NRSC in fundraising."

How about the fact that Congressional Republicans just aren't that popular ... because we haven't changed our ways? The numbers demonstrate abject failure. After all, we have 27% approval, while the Dems have 34%. Oh yeah. And Bush is in the single digits, along with right-track/wrong-track. And we've had 9 straight months of job loss.

Maybe the problem is us. The lesson of this election for Republicans cannot be about John McCain, although he has his faults. It has to be about the establishment and us. Our leaders have lead us astray. It is probably time to find new leaders. Rank and file Republicans get that. That's why the last two guys standing were the farthest from the establishment: John McCain and Mike Huckabee.

Until the establishment in Congress and party accept that they are part of the problem, we are just going to continue to lose more seats and continue to destroy our party and our movement. McCain isn't doing that.

Note: in the first version, I said "indicted" not "convicted" because I desperately need an editor.

We welcome Senator Alexander to the blog, and applaud his action to improve our energy situation.  - Jon Henke

Americans are feeling the pain at the pump. Hundreds of my constituents have written me with their stories of how record-high fuel costs are affecting their family budgets. One Tennessean who wrote to me is a diabetic who is having trouble paying for her insulin shots due to rising gas prices. She says: “Gas for work or insulin to live. That is the decision I have had to make several times daily.”

It’s time for Congress to take action. Forty-four Senate Republicans are co-sponsoring legislation to address these record-high costs. Our bill – the Gas Price Reduction Act of 2008 – can be summed up in four words: “Find more, use less.”

“Find more” means we would increase U.S. oil production by one-third through offshore exploration and Western states’ oil shale. This will over time produce at least 3 million barrels a day. “Use less” means we would reduce imported oil by one-third by making it easier for millions of Americans to drive plug-in electric cars and trucks. This will over time reduce Americans’ use of oil by 4 million barrels a day. Just those three provisions – deep sea exploration, Western shale, and plug-in cars – will allow us to cut our oil imports in half.

Unfortunately, most Democrats still insist on trying to repeal half the law of supply and demand.

Instead of Economics 101, we might call this new theory “Obamanomics.”

When we say “offshore exploration,” they say “No, we can’t.” When we say “oil shale development,” they say “No, we can’t.” When we say “more nuclear power for clean electricity to power plug-in cars and trucks,” they say “No, we can’t.”

They would rather our country beg Saudi Arabia and other countries for more oil when we already have larger reserves than the Saudis offshore and in shale in Western states.

Republicans will do BOTH – find more and use less – and we intend to work hard and in good faith to find a way for Democrats to say “yes we can,” too.