Mitch McConnell, known for his political shrewdness, blew a possible chance to end Donald Trump's political career, miscalculating that the ex-President's disgraceful finale would end any political aspirations.
After Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in a violent assault on the Capitol, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him; the Senate voted 57 to 43 to convict, short of the necessary two-thirds. If McConnell had voted for impeachment he might have been able to bring along nine other Republicans, and then by majority vote bar Trump from seeking the office again.In a new biography of the Senate GOP Leader, The Price of Power, by journalist Michael Tackett, McConnell had no doubt that Trump had committed an impeachable offense but thought it could hurt GOP Senate candidates in 2022. So he played the political card, gambling "on his belief that Trump would fade from the political scene."
Instead, Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, today totally dominates the party; McConnell is stepping down as Senate Republican leader.
The Price of Power chronicles McConnell's contempt for Trump's character and abilities. He declared Trump unfit for the Presidency, "stupid," and a "despicable human being." He very much wants Trump to "pay a price" for the violence he unleashed on January 6.
The powerful longest serving Senate GOP leader cooperated with Tackett, a highly respected journalist who over three years conducted scores of interviews, dozens with McConnell, and had full access to all his archives.Now McConnell has endorsed Trump, putting party over principle.
An inside look at his disdain for Trump is the obvious headline weeks before the November 5 election. The book is much more than that, a richly reported look at the Kentuckian's remarkable rise to become one of the most influential congressional leaders in recent times.
As a longtime McConnell critic, it reaffirmed my opprobrium. It also gave me insights into the courage and fortitude he has displayed starting with the challenges of childhood polio. He isn't a natural politician but outworked his opponents and always was prodigiously prepared.Starting as a moderate Republican in the 1970s -- this persistent for foe of any campaign finance limitations once embraced a progressive campaign finance reform including public financing of elections -- he adjusted to the political winds, turned conservative and ultimately won a Senate seat with a savage campaign directed by the notorious political hit man Roger Ailes.
McConnell was a work horse from the time he arrived in the Senate, mastering the rules and, as Tackett writes, "fixated on the power of money," both for Republican campaigns and for his personal projects like the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville.When he became the Senate Minority Leader he "worked to assuage Republicans' dismay and frustration," Tackett notes, "by telling them the minority party held extraordinary power in the Senate and he knew how to wield it." That he did; there rarely has been a more effective obstructionist, protecting his members and undercutting especially the Obama presidency.
Nowhere has McConnell's influence been as significant as judicial appointments. While the main focus is on the Supreme Court, he got 54 judges, most staunch conservatives, confirmed for federal appeals courts, which Stanford Law School professor Pam Karlan observes, decide many more cases than the high court.
But it was McConnell's actions on the Supreme Court that made clear it was a "political football," says Karlan, and ended any sense that he was an institutionalist caring about norms and protocols. When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, McConnell made what he told Tackett was his proudest and most consequential act: he refused to allow a Senate confirmation hearing or a vote on any nominee sent by President Obama. For eleven months McConnell dictated it was an eight member court.
He made that unprecedented decision and then searched for a rationale -- that Supreme Court nominees are not confirmed in a presidential election year when the Senate and the White House are controlled by different political parties. It was untrue. In 1988, a Presidential election year, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted to confirm President Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of Anthony Kennedy.
And in September of 2020, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, McConnell moved with lightening speed to ram through the confirmation of Republican nominee Amy Coney Barrett on a partisan vote.
These victories delighted conservatives. However, they not only tainted McConnell's reputation but also that of the Supreme Court, which many Americans now view as politically partisan.
He has been a consistent advocate for an active American global presence, a strong supporter of helping Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion, and of a robust defense budget. In one of his last interviews with Tackett, he vowed: "I am going to make John McCain sound like a dove."As the 82 year-old Kentucky lawmaker serves his final two years, Republicans are marching to the more isolationist/protectionist tune of Trump and running mate J.D. Vance.
The subtitle of the biography captures his legacy: "How Mitch McConnell mastered the Senate, changed America and lost his party."
Discussion about this post
No posts