Attacking the Wrong Team
Posted on December 10, 2009
Attacking the Wrong Team
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been pretty successful at keeping his small band of happy warriors together in battling the Democratic plan to socialize our nation’s medical system.
He and his able staff have poked holes in the Democratic arguments. He has highlighted the dumb things that the Democratic bill would do. He has let guys like Ben Nelson take the lead on abortion issues, making it not a Republican issue, but a bipartisan cause to stop the Congress from forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions.
The Democrats are so desperate, that they concocting brand new plans at the last moment to try to crack the public option code. Talk about a Hail Mary pass. These plans bear no resemblance to the public option that has the left-wing so fired up, but they are so silly and so untested, that they do nothing to entice possible cross-over votes from people like Olympia Snowe.
Nobody could have predicted six months ago that Republicans could have been doing this well on an issue that normally doesn’t favor conservatives. But because of McConnell’s leadership, the Democrats are tied up in knots, and the President’s poll numbers on the issue are dropping like the stock market of September, 2008.
So, what does that erstwhile conservative strategist and noted Senate expert Rush Limbaugh do? He attacks Mitch McConnell.
Nice.
According to the Hill, Rush is hitting McConnell, saying that his tactics are not dilatory enough. He wants McConnell to throw every procedural tactic in the book to slow progress until after Christmas. What Rush doesn’t seem to realize is that the Senate Minority leader is playing a delicate game with key moderates like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. If he is too dilatory, he can lose two votes and then lose the game, set and match.
There is so much for old Rushbo to attack.
There is the President’s trip to Copenhagen. There is the Democrats’ plans to expand Medicare, a program that is already going broke. There is Harry Reid’s plan to increase the debt limit by $1.3 trillion. There is Chris Dodd’s plans to tax Wall Street. So much material, and so little time.
And so, who does he attack? Mitch McConnell.
You have got to be frickin’ kidding me.
Hey Rush, get a clue. McConnell’s strategy is working. He is keeping his team together. He is keeping Snowe from jumping to the dark side. He poking holes in the Democrats’ weak arguments.
As Karl Rove pointed out today in the Wall Street Journal, Republicans are back in the game in the Senate. I wish Karl had been more bold in his predictions, because I believe that because of McConnell’s leadership, Republicans have a real chance to take back the Senate. (The House is a done deal, in my opinion).
Rush, leave the legislative strategy to the experts. Do what you do best. Make fun of Democrats. And stop attacking the wrong team.