Posted on 03/20/2023 12:10:40 PM PDT by RandFan
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) extended absence from the Senate has stirred speculation among Republican senators over how much longer the 81-year-old senator will lead the Senate GOP conference.
There’s no word yet on McConnell’s date of return, but some lawmakers expect he may not come back to the Senate until mid-April, after the two-week Easter and Passover recess.
“I’ve heard senators say, half-jokingly, I wonder if the people who want to be leader are starting to count votes,” one Republican senator said. “People are thinking this is probably good reminder that he’s not going to be leader in 10 years.”
“It’s kind of a state of limbo. Nobody really knows what the situation is and nobody knows how long he’ll be gone,” the lawmaker added. “A couple of folks have said, ‘Who’s in charge right now.’”
Another GOP senator privately expressed concern to The Hill last week about the future of the Senate Republican Conference after McConnell retires.
“I think, who would be our next leader and what kind of leader would that person be?” the senator said. “Yeah, I do worry about that.”
The Republican Party is changing and some GOP lawmakers fear that could accelerate if former President Trump wins the party’s presidential nomination or general election in 2024. Speculation about Trump is rising again this week as the former president himself predicts an indictment over a hush-money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Romney or graham would not be an improvement!!
I think Lee meets that requirement, but I'm open to other names.
You offered three additional people, Rand Paul, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley. Do they meet the offered requirements?
-PJ
Declare the Minority Leader office vacant and vote in a real GOP American.
Retire, and rock back and forth in your rocking chair remembering all your past glories; the betrayals, the disappointments, the sell-outs, the surrenders...
I lost my dad to the consequences of a fall in January. He also was in ‘inpatient’ rehab, which leads me to believe there’s a lot being withheld about the seriousness of The Turtle’s medical condition.
bkmk
Falls can be very severe, especially at 80+
This is all HORSE$#!T
RATs have 51, minus 3 = 48
REPs have 49, minus 1 = 48
Cameltoe is back with the deciding vote!
Turtle is absenting himself to GUARANTEE there is no REP majority!
The GOP is AFRAID to lead!!!
The Republican party, doing what it does best...cower.
It’s from the Hill so what do you expect.
Romney or graham would not be an improvement!!
**************
Fine.
The whole Senate sucks.
We better keep Mitch, so they can suck less.
The nation cannot be saved until the GOP is destroyed.
The Era of Good Feelings 2.0 is over.
“ This is all HORSE$#!T
RATs have 51, minus 3 = 48
REPs have 49, minus 1 = 48
Cameltoe is back with the deciding vote!
Turtle is absenting himself to GUARANTEE there is no REP majority!
The GOP is AFRAID to lead!!!…”
********************************************************
You could well be 100% correct. It’s a mystery why Turtle isn’t (as far as I know) in SPOKEN communication with his Senate leadership team.
Maybe something more with his medical condition?
McConnell had zero ability to fund or defund candidates. The MAGA base sat on their behinds and kept their wallets closed and left their own candidates twisting in the wind with nearly zero support while the Dem base gleefully opened their wallets and the Dems raked in cash from small donors even in hopeless quixotic contests they had no chance to win, as they do every year. Yet from supposedly conservative publications we had nonsensical headlines detailing how McConnell "pulled funding" from such and such candidate to try to explain why the base wasn't supporting them so they could run their own campaigns and just fan flames of conspiracy. He had no such power. He could choose where his own Super PAC spent money, but such PACs are only supplemental / supporting roles. If they are the whole game for an air war, the campaign is probably doomed...and they were. These publications would have been better served, if they actually cared about conservative/MAGA victories, with accurate headlines detailing the lack of fundraising and donations these candidates were receiving and people may have stepped up and corrected it. Instead, these headlines and articles made it sound like it was all up to McConnell one way or the other. And that was a lie. It is certainly true (as McConnell himself openly admitted) that he did not prefer the nominees in many races...and given the lack of ability to do even basic fundraising the base ultimately proved themselves he was correct that they lacked quality. Who can argue with that if their own base supporters won't support them and help them run a campaign in the face of well funded Democrat opponents? Were was Trump's campaign organization in helping with a call to action to fundraise? They almost certainly have a large list of contacts for which they could have sent out pleas for donations. A few million people donating as little as 5 to 10 bucks a piece to each candidate would have made an enormous difference.
Your requirements suck. Electable by whom? RINOs?
his recovery may be progressing at a snail’s pace.
They will just put Linda as the GOP lead in the Senate.
GOP is dead with or without the Turtle.
Old people should not be in key positions. Retire, write a book, go on a talk show, but leave the governing to people willing to work 80-hour weeks.
Yes I am an old guy, and I know old people: interesting folks with good stories, for sure. But get out of the pilot’s seat.
Next time, maybe you should spend an extra minute or two researching the thread for context before you hurl insults around?
-PJ
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