True Colors Sliming Thru

This is the best example around that highlights the bankruptcy and corruption endemic within the Republican Congress. If Democrats fail to take both the Senate and House in 2006, they sure will in 2008. The definition of political sleaze – Sen. Mitch McConnell.

That someone with McConnell’s political style stands to assume what is arguably the third-most-powerful elected post in the federal government speaks volumes about the state of the contemporary Republican Party—and about Washington in general. McConnell is a staunch conservative and a master of procedure, but no piece of landmark legislation bears his name.

Indeed, McConnell’s political persona—with its focus on bare-knuckled partisanship and support for a money-driven legislative system—embodies the very qualities that have helped reverse Republican political fortunes so dramatically over the last year and a half, and have led directly to a series of government scandals and slipups. In uniting around Mitch McConnell, Republicans are, in effect, doubling down on the governing style that got them, and us, into this mess in the first place.

The Senate’s shift toward increased party discipline has been accompanied by a growing willingness to use the legislative process to benefit the Republican Party’s financial backers.

Since arriving in Washington, McConnell has used two major tactics to get to the top. He has ensured himself a steady flow of campaign dollars by going all out on behalf of the Republican Party’s financial backers—and has then used these contributions to build his own, and his party’s, political power.

A leader hoping to get legislation passed would probably respond by being more conciliatory toward the minority—but Republicans didn’t pick McConnell because of his talent for conciliation. “I think he’ll be more likely to pick a fight,” says the Heritage Foundation’s Darling. With a confrontational Republican leader, a narrow Senate majority, and an unpopular, lame duck president, the next two years don’t figure to see much landmark legislation passed. Instead, if the past is any guide, Majority Leader McConnell will focus only on measures that support Republican power or drive a wedge between Democrats, and will do everything possible to keep campaign dollars flowing to the GOP.

Posted on The Human Stain