Posted on 05/25/2015 1:36:00 PM PDT by concernedcitizen76
Sen. Mitch McConnell’s time in Washington has been about building power for himself and his party, not representing Kentuckians. He wields that power to aggregate more power, doing what it takes to advance his chances of re-election and achieving the goal of running the U.S. Senate as majority leader. That ultimate goal is within reach.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in his de-evolution on money-in-politics and the primacy he places on rigging the rules of the game to benefit his own party.
McConnell believes the pathway to power is about one thing and one thing alone: one’s ability to raise money. He uses his amassed political power to intimidate those who don’t agree, threaten business interests, and block bipartisan legislation to address our broken campaign finance system.
A 2006 series in the Herald-Leader by investigative reporter John Cheves turned up two quotes that encapsulate McConnell’s love of fundraising:
Marshall Wittman, a former aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said, “He’s completely dogged in his pursuit of money. That’s his great love, above everything else.”
A former colleague, Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.) said that “when he asked for money, his eyes would shine like diamonds. He obviously loved it.”
Here’s some more examples of McConnell placing fundraising and power above all else.
Getting re-elected is the only job.
In his biography on McConnell, John David Dyche writes that upon winning his first election, “from the outset, McConnell considered his first term as being mainly about getting elected to a second.” McConnell, “always a planner, he continued putting more emphasis on reelection than legislation.” (John David Dyche, Republican Leader: A Political Biography of Senator Mitch McConnell, p. 64 and 66)
Asserting his control over the party with bare-knuckle tactics.
As McConnell waged war with Tea Party groups trying to oust incumbent senators this year, he threatened consultants and donors who supported them with being cut off from his cash reserves. Of course, supporting candidates with money is exactly the kind of “free speech” rights he so passionately speaks for.
“He’s essentially joined the I.R.S. in targeting conservative groups,” said Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, of McConnell.
McConnell deploys an army of lobbyists to enforce his desires.
According to conservative publication the National Review, “McConnell has often exercised power in D.C. by pressuring major donors to withhold donations from a given lawmaker or organization. His allies on K Street are often the people who deliver this message and ‘enforce’ it.” (Link)
He pressures donors to give to Republicans, offering favors in exchange.
He leaned on defense industry donors to open their pockets to Republicans, promising that if his candidates win, their big contracts would stay in place. (Link)
He openly threatened business leaders when they supported money-in-politics reform.
Leading the fight against the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 1999, McConnell sent threatening letters to executives at member companies of the Committee for Economic Development because the group spoke out in favor of the bill. The CED president at the time, Charles Kolb, referred to the letters as “thuggish.” The message was clear: join me, or your issues before Congress will be threatened. (Link)
McConnell shakes down lobbyists and clients.
“They invited Republican lobbyists to dinner with McConnell in a private room at Carmine’s, a family-style Italian restaurant in downtown Washington, with no apparent price of admission. But after spaghetti and meatballs, McConnell thanked everyone for coming, told them he needed them to contribute the maximum allowable in personal money ($30,800 in 2012) to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and then sat back and waited. What followed was a long, pained silence, one of McConnell’s preferred negotiating tools. Then, one after another, attendees acquiesced. Organizers called these ‘the sandbag dinners.'”
Love this website....against Midge.
The problem isn’t the turtle, its the people who show up and vote for him and his associates in the house, the senate, and the white house. You vote for it, you own it.
There is only one way to get rid of people like McConnell and McCain. Stay home and don’t vote, vote for a third party, or vote for their democrat opponent. They will always be there as long as they know they’ll get our votes no matter what.
Cochran should have lost to the democrat after what the gop pulled. But he didn’t because too many people said “Well, we’ve got to keep control of the senate.” What good has that done?
I say “Send make sure they lose the elections no matter what it takes.”
I know, it’s all in a “familiar name”. All the uninformed know to do is mark the name they have heard of.
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