Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been reduced to whining and complaining after being outwitted by President Obama.
Transcript via 60 Minutes:
Scott Pelley: What was your impression of the president’s State of the Union speech?
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Mitch McConnell: My first thought it was it sounded like he was running for a third term. He seemed to have– completely forgotten or chose to ignore– the election last November. He was looking out at an audience that had 80 more Republicans in it than his first State of the Union.
Majority Leader McConnell is still living in the world of his own delusion that a Republican midterm win would force the president to bend to his will. McConnell campaigned on breaking the president’s will and forcing him to do the bidding of the Republican Party. Immediately following the November election, McConnell expressed shock that President Obama did not immediately give Republicans everything that they want. In December 2014, Sen. McConnell said that he was perplexed by the president’s behavior. The Kentucky Republicans was confused by the fact that Barack Obama continued to act like the President Of The United States.
McConnell had big plans. He was going to use the Senate to threaten the president with repeated government shutdowns in order to get his agenda passed, “The emerging strategy: Attach riders to spending bills that would limit Obama policies on everything from the environment to health care, consider using an arcane budget tactic to circumvent Democratic filibusters and force the president to “move to the center” if he wants to get any new legislation through Congress.”
The Republican strategy was quickly blown to bits by President Obama’s decision to seize the agenda through aggressive executive action. Republicans have spent weeks bickering among themselves while coming to the realization that without 60 votes in the Senate, there isn’t much they can do. McConnell immediately took government shutdowns off of the table through September 2015 by cooperating on passage of a government funding bill. In reality, if Republicans are going to use their budget and shutdown strategy, they will have one shot at it before the 2016 presidential campaign heads into full swing.
Sen. McConnell has been reduced to whining and complaining. President Obama has out strategized McConnell. Sen. McConnell had visions of Republicans mounting an offensive legislative charge against the president. The reality has been that the president has masterfully put Republicans on the defensive while McConnell has been boxed in by Democratic senators and the president.
Like a child who didn’t get his way, all the Senate Majority Leader has left are empty complaints.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
