Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the head of party establishment forces in Washington, DC, came right out and said it: We get to decide which GOP candidates run for office, not the voters.
Grassroots Republicans lamenting the fizzling out of the anticipated “red wave” that was going to rebuke a deeply unpopular Biden administration and rock the Potomac Swamp in midterm elections last month should consider the very strong possibility that such a mandate was the very last thing their national party leadership desired.
McConnell to GOP Base: We Call the Shots Around Here
“Our ability to control the primary outcome was quite limited in 2022 because of the support of the former president [Donald Trump],” McConnell openly declared on Dec. 13 in an astonishingly blunt public statement. “Hopefully in the next cycle, we’ll have quality candidates everywhere.” By “quality candidates,” McConnell means Republicans who will adhere to the status quo. Anyone aligned with a change agenda automatically fails to meet this standard.
It’s not as if he is hiding these sentiments. McConnell, in his remarks, made sure to cite Arizona as a state that didn’t fit his “quality” label. “Remember, we mentioned that back in August,” McConnell said. “Look at Arizona, look at New Hampshire, and the challenging situation in Georgia as well… You have to have quality candidates to win competitive Senate races.”
It must be particularly galling to Republican rank-and-filers – who were keen on taking the Senate and thus capturing total control of Congress – to see McConnell double down on his August decision to pull crucial funding from his Senate Leadership Fund PAC out of an exceedingly tight Arizona race. He did so to further boost his support for a faltering careerist Alaskan senator facing a challenge from a reformist Republican for a seat the GOP was never going to lose.
McConnell yanked some $8 million in ad money for the campaign of Blake Masters as the America First GOP nominee was closing in on Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). At the same time, he upped his financial backing for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), whose main opposition in a ranked-choice election was a fellow Republican, the Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka.
Fast forward to November. Murkowski survived, edging Tshibaka in a result that did absolutely nothing to help Republicans claim the Senate but did keep a veteran Republican establishment figure securely ensconced in her seat for another six years. And Masters fell short against Kelly, a loss that proved devastating to hopes of a GOP-majority Senate. The conclusion is difficult to ignore: Given the choice of America First candidates coming to Washington or Democrats retaining control of the Senate, McConnell appears to prefer the latter scenario.
Hammer Time Mitch: You Can’t Touch This
(Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
The Senate GOP leader is yet another reflection of a trend that has engulfed Western nations. Wildly unpopular politicians are locked into place in the highest elected offices representative governments have to offer. A Civiqs poll released in November showed a shockingly low 7% favorability rating for McConnell, while a whopping 81% of those surveyed viewed him unfavorably. McConnell isn’t merely underwater in such polls; he is belly down at the bottom of the riverbed. A RealClearPolitics compilation of multiple surveys has him at a -35 favorability gap when all polls are combined.
Yet here he is, effectively telling Republican voters that they cannot be allowed to choose their preferred candidates in party primaries. It’s a remarkably telling example of just how comfortable the political establishment feels in DC a full six years after Trump shook it to its core with his 2016 presidential election victory. The American people allegedly have the final say at the ballot box, yet candidates nobody supports keep getting elected. And now, the disconnect between elected official and voters is so total that these manifestly disliked politicians are telling the voters who calls the shots.
This is all very significant, isn’t it?
The lack of a decisive midterms message to Washington lets Mitch McConnell go on doing nothing to disrupt the entrenched machinery while all the wheels of business as usual whirl away in the Swamp. The last thing in the world a man like McConnell wants is to be faced with an ultimatum from voters demanding clear and unambiguous action on their behalf. He is telling this to the American people, and Republican voters specifically, to their faces. And he is exceedingly confident that he will suffer no serious setback as he does so.
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