Posted on 05/17/2011 6:14:03 AM PDT by SharpRightTurn
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a favorite son of the Tea Party, wanted a seat on the Senate Budget Committee, but was passed over in favor of a more junior colleague.
The decision was made by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who instead picked Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), the only member of the Senate Republican conference with less seniority than Paul. (Paul and Ayotte entered the Senate the same day, but Paul has more seniority by draw.)
A Senate GOP aide familiar with Paul’s ambitions said Paul asked for the Budget seat that was to become vacant after Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) announced his resignation last month.
Paul’s spokeswoman Moira Bagley said her boss asked for a seat on the Budget Committee at the beginning of the year. She declined, however, to comment about whether he reiterated his interest after Ensign revealed his plans to step down.
The Senate aide familiar with the behind the scenes jockeying said Paul did indeed make that request.
A second Senate aide questioned the decision: “I don’t know why he’d skip Rand Paul, I don’t know anyone better to have on the Budget Committee than Rand Paul.”
Paul has introduced the only budget plan in Congress that would balance the budget in five years, the span set forth by the Senate GOP’s proposed balanced budget amendment.
Paul is the second prominent Tea Party-affiliated senator to lose out on one of the plum assignments held by Ensign.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) met with McConnell earlier this month to express his interest in a seat on the Finance Committee, which Ensign vacated.
McConnell instead tapped Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) to serve on Finance, a surprise pick because Burr had stated twice publicly — once through a spokeswoman — that he did not want to change his committee assignments.
Some conservatives were sharply disappointed that DeMint lost out to Burr and voiced suspicions about the North Carolina senator’s apparent change of mind.
“Burr didn’t show any interest in that seat and then he was interested. That raised eyebrows amongst conservatives and they thought it was an effort to get around Jim DeMint,” said Brian Darling, senior fellow for government studies at The Heritage Foundation.
“There was wide expectation that DeMint was a lock for the Finance Committee,” he added.
A spokesman for McConnell declined to comment.
McConnell’s defenders argued that Burr should have gotten the seat over DeMint because he ranks higher on the seniority list.
But Tea Party-affiliated conservatives countered that the selection of Ayotte over Paul for the budget panel upends any rationale for picking Burr, who voted for the Wall Street bailout in 2008, over DeMint.
“For those who use the seniority argument as a blanket argument, please explain why Kelly Ayotte is on the Budget Committee and not Rand Paul?” Erick Erickson wrote Thursday on RedState.com, a conservative blog.
“This, of course, isn’t a dig at Ayotte. Just pointing out that for those who are hiding behind the ‘seniority’ argument, you are full of b.s.” Erickson wrote in a post directed at Republicans who defended the decision to put Burr on Finance.
DeMint and Paul are founders of the Senate Tea Party Caucus but neither of them have had a cozy relationship with McConnell.
DeMint clashed with McConnell in the 111th Congress over a moratorium on earmarks. DeMint wanted to halt the practice but McConnell, a longtime member of the Appropriations Committee, initially defended lawmakers’ powers to direct federal spending in their home states.
DeMint defied McConnell by endorsing Paul in the 2010 Kentucky Republican primary after McConnell backed former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Some Republicans saw DeMint’s involvement in McConnell’s political backyard as a breach of Senate protocol.
Paul hasn’t had the warmest friendship with McConnell since coming to Washington. Paul surprised colleagues by criticizing former Kentucky Sen. Henry Clay, one of McConnell’s role models, during his maiden Senate floor speech.
“Henry Clay’s life story is, at best, a mixed message,” Paul said. “Henry Clay’s great compromise was over slavery. One could argue that he rose above sectional strife to carve out compromise after compromise trying to ward off civil war.
“Or one could argue that his compromises were morally wrong and may have even encouraged war, that his compromises meant the acceptance during his 50 years of public life of not only slavery, but the slave trade itself,” he said.
McConnell walked off the floor in the middle of that speech by Paul. An aide later said he had to attend a previously scheduled meeting.
McConnell and Alexander in the Senate and Boehner and Cantor in the House are obstacles to real conservative change.
VOTE OUT ALL INCUMBANTS~!
How long has McConnell been in office?
THEY MADE THIS MESS
Agreed.
We need a TEA PARTY MARCH ON GOP HEADQUARTERS
Another reason to refuse to give anything to the R party and its committees.
Conservatives are still a minority in the GOP, much less Congress as a whole
Time for “Earmark” Mitch McConnell (R/Self-Interest) to go!
“Conservatives are still a minority in the GOP, much less Congress as a whole”
You’re right there. Of course, almost all of the Republican candidates have to pose as conservatives, however, in order to win and hold on to their seats. They trust that when they get to D.C. very few of their voters will be paying attention.
YEP, VOTE ‘EM OUT.
THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.
His plan makes to much sense. And it pains RIONOs
“I think the GOP bunch needs a Tea Party rejuvenation. Once the election was accomplished last November the TPM seems to have gone into hibernation...the left and the bit GOP is no longer intimidated by the TPM and see them as a flash in the pan.”
I think the career politicians have seen several election cycles where the electorate gets riled up at election time and then goes back to soap operas and sports after election day. The establishment politicians know to do what they have to do to make it through the election and then they can go back to their Beltway proclivities.
It may take knocking out someone like McConnell and/or Boehner by a Tea Party candidate in the primaries to really get their attention. You are right that they don’t seem to have gotten the message from the 2010 results.
You’re all precisely right. 2012 will be a barn burner, but in the interim, the GOP-E is doing a lot of damage by playing into the hands of the democrat, with this “go-along-to-get-along—good-old-boys and girls club”.
I will call McConnell’s office to relate my displeasure with him for passing over Rand Paul!
Washington Office
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-2541
I’m kinda surprised I haven’t seen any:
“don’t worry Sarah will save the day” posts.
How many more elections will we give to the Republican establishment before we start looking outside the beltway for leadership.
That GOP-E and its punidtry sure don’t want her to run, but the field is quickly narrowing. Are they all looking for a sacrificial lamb? I wonder.
An interesting idea onyx:
Let me see if I understand you.
The GOP est. hates Sarah. She is too much the individual and too western for their tastes. They see 2012 as a lock for Obama and want him to helm the ship as we take a drastic nose dive.
They say to themselves, let’s clear the board for Sarah to run in 2012 so the press can really tee her up and knock her out of politics forever. They think she will suffer a humiliating loss as well as having many many things made up about her with no rebuttal from the press.
Then they trott out the new RINO/neo-con golden boy to take over in 2016 after the country suffers through more Obama.
Not a bad strategy but I don’t think we’ll last two more years much less 4.
Paul also attacked McConnell's hero Henry Clay on the Senate floor during his maiden speech. McConnell got so mad that he stood up and walked out on him.
This is just payback.
“This is just payback.”
Correct. McConnell doesn’t like DeMint because DeMint will not fall in with the “party line” as laid down by McConnell and Alexander.
And, as you indicated, McConnell REALLY doesn’t like Paul because Paul defeated McConnell’s hand picked successor to Bunning in McConnell’s home state and because Paul poked his finger in McConnell’s eye with the disparagement of the “Compromiser”.
To get change, I think we are going to have to cut off the head of the snake.
TEA PARTY MARCH ON GOP HEADQUARTERS~!!!
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