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Could John Cornyn become Senate majority leader?
dallasnews.com ^ | 5/17/14 | Todd Gillman

Posted on 05/19/2014 11:36:21 AM PDT by cotton1706

WASHINGTON — If all goes well for Republicans this spring and fall, they’ll take control of the U.S. Senate.

That would pose major problems for the president, who already faces a House that is hostile to his agenda. And it might present a huge opportunity for Sen. John Cornyn.

With the right alignment of stars, the Texan could end up as majority leader, the most powerful person in the Senate.

The odds are actually pretty good, not that he’s rooting for that scenario. There’s already a majority leader-in-waiting, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Cornyn — currently the deputy GOP leader — has described himself as a “big fan” and vowed ongoing support for McConnell’s leadership.

“He and McConnell are very close,” said GOP strategist Brian Walsh, a former Cornyn aide at his Senate office and at the party’s Senate campaign arm during Cornyn’s four-year tenure as chairman. “Even privately he’s not thinking that. He wants McConnell to win.”

Still, it wouldn’t be up to Cornyn.

Voters in Kentucky and more than a half-dozen other battleground states this fall will, collectively, decide whether Nevada Democrat Harry Reid gets to keep the top job in the Senate — or whether that honor goes to a Republican, be it McConnell or someone else.

For Cornyn to move up, McConnell would have to lose his seat. And that looks entirely plausible.

McConnell is all but certain to clear his next hurdle: a primary Tuesday against tea partier Matt Bevin.

An NBC News/Marist Poll last week showed the incumbent leading among likely GOP voters, despite months of feuding between McConnell and major tea party players such as FreedomWorks and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Cornyn’s sympathies are clear. In February, he donated $10,000 for McConnell’s re-election through his political action committee.

(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: elections
I'm sure Mitch doesn't like to see stories like this one day before he supposedly will "crush" his Tea Party opponent.

But that's why I thoroughly enjoy posting it!

1 posted on 05/19/2014 11:36:21 AM PDT by cotton1706
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To: cotton1706

Not much of a Cornyn fan, but he’d be miles better than Mitch in terms on media. Mitch is almost as ineffective as Boehnner. Cornyn is far from ideal, but he’d be able to get on tv and make better points.


2 posted on 05/19/2014 11:38:46 AM PDT by ilgipper
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To: cotton1706

Cornyn??? God help us. I’d rather have McConnell. At least he’s smart. Cornyn is as stupid and incompetent as he is squishy in his positions.


3 posted on 05/19/2014 11:39:02 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: cotton1706

I suppose he could if the republicans decide to be stupid...

...

...

...

...okay, he could.


4 posted on 05/19/2014 11:40:18 AM PDT by WayneS (Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.)
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To: cotton1706

That would be evil. The only reason Reid is the Senate Majority Leader today is because Cornyn deliberately sabotaged the 2010 Senate campaign after botching 2008. His ideal candidates left the GOP - Specter, Crist, Chaffee.


5 posted on 05/19/2014 11:42:58 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: ilgipper

Simply being more effective at the GOPe concept is no win whatsoever.


6 posted on 05/19/2014 11:47:34 AM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: ilgipper

Cornyn could not even run the GOP senatorial committee right,
backing Crist over Rubio.

And folks want to promote him to Majority leader?

Good luck with that.


7 posted on 05/19/2014 11:49:26 AM PDT by tennmountainman (Just Say No To Obamacare)
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To: WayneS
I suppose he could if the republicans decide to be stupid...

Translation -- he probably will.

Until these cretins are back to being private citizens, there is no hope at all for stemming the tide of governmental growth. They are not speed bumps. They are not obstacles. They are willing accomplices, which, under the false mantras of "the lesser of two evils" and "electability", Republican voters insist on championing. Until Republican voters come to grips with this problem, we are fated to drift ever to the left. Karl Rove, and his kind, may or may not win elections -- that is debatable. But what is not debatable is that their kind is a necessary prerequisite for the rampant expansion of the malevolent indifference that we call "government".
8 posted on 05/19/2014 11:49:29 AM PDT by jjsheridan5
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To: jjsheridan5

Speaking as a Texan, I give my senior senator a score of B for the most part, so it could be better but could be a lot worse. At least he is pro Fracking etc...


9 posted on 05/19/2014 11:53:34 AM PDT by Bidimus1
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To: Bidimus1

Taking a stand on an issue or two does not constitute substantive resistance. The bottom line is that we are descending into that which the founders of this country feared, and we are, sadly, content when we receive crumbs from the table. Since you are a Texan, I say with both respect and a touch of jealousy, that your state is likely to keep its head above water longer than the rest, but this country is in dire need of statesmen, and John Cornyn does not measure up.


10 posted on 05/19/2014 11:59:32 AM PDT by jjsheridan5
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To: ilgipper
Cornyn will have to win his election without my vote. That liberal bastard didn't get primaried, but that doesn't mean I have to vote for him in the general election.

/johnny

11 posted on 05/19/2014 12:00:40 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: cotton1706

No


12 posted on 05/19/2014 12:04:39 PM PDT by Lorianne (fedgov, taxporkmoney)
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To: Opinionated Blowhard
McConnell is an organizer. He always has a plan and follows through with it. It doesn't always work but there is a plan, stuff doesn't just happen.

I will be voting for Matt Bevin in the Primary, I wish I could vote for him in the General. I realize that the polls call for Grimes to win but McConnell hasn't started campaigning against her yet. Here in Kentucky Obamacare didn't hit us quite as hard as some states because we already had a state controlled health plan of sorts, let us say State commanded health plan. We were already higher than most of the country so ours only went up about 50% or so, but people don't like loosing their doctors and don't like losing their work provided health care. I think November will be a bad for Democrats. But, then again I thought Romney would beat Obama.

I will vote for McConnell in November but I won't like it.

13 posted on 05/19/2014 12:06:09 PM PDT by JAKraig (Surely my religion is at least as good as yours)
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To: cotton1706

God forbid. He’s a RINO


14 posted on 05/19/2014 12:06:41 PM PDT by ZULU (https://www.facebook.com/freejustina)
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To: Bidimus1

Then put him in charge of the Senate Fracking Committee, not majority leader.


15 posted on 05/19/2014 12:16:55 PM PDT by tennmountainman (Just Say No To Obamacare)
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To: cotton1706

I just made a trip from my place to Somerset in Kentucky. About a hundred miles round trip or so. Two different ways were taken, all of them on the back roads.

I saw numerous Bevin yard signs and amazingly not one, NOT ONE, McConnell yard sign.

On the other hand I and my friends and neighbors have been receiving ‘I support Mitch” robo-calls unceasingly for the last five days. Personally I let the answering machine get them and if the Robo-calls starts blasting away, I answer and hang-up immediately.

One of my wife’s friends received 21 call this weekend and called the local McConnell office to complain and tell them to stop the Harassment!

So my own entirely unofficial position is that McConnell is really running scared. He is spending his campaign cash like it was government money in direct, personal campaigning with directed mail flyers and these G.D. irritating phone calls. And I hope he loses and loses big! For five years and six months he ignores his ‘home’ state every term he has been in the Senate and only pays attention when it’s campaign season.

It’s time to give McConnell a long-over due retirement.


16 posted on 05/19/2014 12:19:37 PM PDT by The Working Man
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To: JAKraig
I will vote for McConnell in November but I won't like it.

It is a terrible dilemma to feel compelled to do that which you know instinctively is wrong, for fear of the alternative. Living in a thoroughly "blue" area of the country, I have no such problem. However, I would ask you to remember the adage that ends with the prospect that we shall hang separately. There can be no good that follows from lending your support to McConnell. Personally, I would vote Democrat, simply to aid in the removal of that which the enemy relies. But the prospect of either voting Democrat, or not voting, sickens me. But there are times where you have to rid yourself of dead-weight, and enablers, and I think that this is one of those times.
17 posted on 05/19/2014 12:20:27 PM PDT by jjsheridan5
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To: The Working Man

That’s very good to hear! I’d love for Bevin to have an upset, or short of that, a very high percentage to scare the hell out of every official across the country. We’ll see tomorrow.


18 posted on 05/19/2014 12:26:28 PM PDT by cotton1706 (ThisRepublic.net)
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To: cotton1706
Corn-hole?
Hell NO! He's a stinking RINO that voted for TARP (Taxpayer A$$-Raping Program) back in '08. How he is continually re-elected is a mystery to me.
19 posted on 05/19/2014 4:53:08 PM PDT by Sarajevo (Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?")
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