IMHO Mitch McConnell Hacked Himself: Monday Focus: May 19, 2014

Jonathan Chait writes about how Mitch McConnell “hacked American politics”. But, I think–and I am not sure I am right–this is one of the (rare) things that Jonathan Chait gets wrong. Most of all, I think, Mitch McConnell hacked himself.

Mitch McConnell did not go to Washington to do nothing. Mitch McConnell went to Washington to make the country a better place–or, at the very least, to pass legislation or at least block legislation in ways that would please powerful interest groups that might someday employ him, and put them in his debt. He failed to block the marginal tax rate increase on the rich–and the upper middle class whose rates he may have preserved don’t hire ex-senators. He did please health-insurance companies by blocking the public option that would have been their competition–but his root-and-branch opposition to the rest of Nationwide RomneyCare… excuse me, ObamaCare, pissed them off much more. He might have blocked large-scale mortgage financing that might well have propelled a much stronger recovery–but Tim Geithner was doing a good job of doing that on his own, and neither mortgage debtors nor mortgage holders are pleased with the current mass-underwater situation at all. He did block cap-and-trade, but all that means is that instead of coal-burning utilities getting valuable carbon-emissions credits to sell, they are about to be hit by the EPA Clean Air Act-regulation hammer–that McConnell has replaced himself with Anthony Kennedy as the negotiating partner whom Obama needs to move forward on global-warming policy.

McConnell did block the infrastructure bank, and did make America a poorer place with more unemployment.

The point of it all, to McConnell, starting in 2007, was to quickly reverse Democratic electoral gains and restore Republican control of the government so that he, Mitch McConnell, could then lead the Senate at the head of a united Republican congress that respected him, and so legislate.

How is that working out for McConnell?

Not too well:

Daniel Malloy: Key Georgia Senate candidates won’t back Mitch McConnell: “At the close of Saturday night’s U.S. Senate Republican debate…

…Jim Galloway asked the seven hopefuls on stage: Would you support Mitch McConnell as GOP leader, whether in the minority or majority? The Kentuckian was not warmly embraced. Businessman David Perdue: ‘My answer is no’. Former Secretary of State Karen Handel: ‘Absolutely not. We need new leadership with new people there’. Rep. Jack Kingston: ‘I’m going to support whoever will sign off on my drive to change the status quo’. Rep. Paul Broun pointed to his vote against House Speaker John Boehner but added: ‘I never pledge what I’m going to do in the future ’til we look at who’s going to be running, so I don’t know’. Rep. Phil Gingrey: ‘I pledge to sit down with every member of the Senate, the incumbents or newly elected, who want to be part of our leadership and listen to ‘em and ask ‘em the tough questions before I would commit to supporting them for the leadership positions’. MARTA engineer Derrick Grayson: ‘The answer is no’. Attorney Art Gardner broke with the crowd: ‘Yes, because the problem with Sen. McConnell isn’t that he’s ineffective. He’s ineffective because he’s in the minority. So I don’t have a problem saying yes.’ Notice the breakdown among the top tier: The Congressmen hedge, while Handel and Perdue firmly refuse to back McConnell…

And McConnell is equally poison among moderate Republicans: the Collinses and the Snows and the Voinoviches and the Murkowskis and the Kirks and the Hellers have voted with McConnell out of party loyalty, but is there one of them who is not pissed as hell at having been put in that position?

And how is McConnell doing in Kentucky? He is on the wrong side of ObamaCare in Kentucky, which thanks to Governor Beshear and his team is turning out to be a remarkable success. McConnell shouldn’t have to worry about the primary tomorrow, but he does. And his general election odds should be better than the 75% against Allison Lundegren Grimes that Nate Silver currently has. You see, McConnell wanted to make Washington a failure so the voters would vote the Democrats who control Washington out. The problem is that, from Kentucky, McConnell too is Washington.

And if there is one thing that Republicans in the Senate are likely to agree on next January, it is that Mitch McConnell–even if he still is in the Senate–is tainted goods as a leader.

Jonathan Chait:
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Jonathan Chait: How Mitch McConnell Hacked American Politics: “For more than three years, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Senator Rob Portman…

…have been cooperating on a bill to improve energy efficiency standards… conservative business lobbies… liberal environmentalists… modest-size but worthy reforms that helped business save money by reducing energy use. It appeared headed for passage, and even had bipartisan House sponsors. Then Monday the bill suddenly died…. The reason Senate Republicans decided to fracture the coalition for an energy bill everybody seemed to like, Sabrina Siddiqui and Ryan Grim report, is that Scott Brown asked them to. Brown is running against Shaheen this November, and Republicans–especially would-be Majority leader Mitch McConnell–want Brown to beat Shaheen…. Republicans are [now] arguing that their torpedoing of Shaheen’s bill proves Shaheen is a legislative failure. But few voters follow politics so closely, and even those reading detailed coverage of the bill’s failure would quickly get lost in an arcane procedural dispute that putatively caused its demise. This dynamic–that voters do not follow the details of legislating, but form crude heuristic judgments based on the two parties’ ability to agree–is the essential strategic premise that has guided Republicans since 2009. Mitch McConnell has, astonishingly, explained this strategy openly on at least two occasions….

The main difference between McConnell and leaders who came before him is not that he’s a worse human being–though I find his policy goals abhorrent–but that he’s more strategically shrewd…