Why McConnell spooks me - and you folks know I'm no Bannon-ite

One of the terms in the proprietary LITD lexicon is Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome. It's loosely synonymous with "squish" or "RINO," but meant to convey a bit more of the social motivations behind squishiness. The whole mindset of, "I see these people every day in the Capitol Hill mess. Our staffers play softball together. Our kids go to the same schools. I know them to be reasonable gentlemen and ladies like us. They share the same broad goals; they just have different strategies for arriving at them."

And we, out here in flyover country, know that something is badly amiss in that outlook. We know that the Democrat party has increasingly, ever since Michael Harrington et al, back in the 1970s, said, "Let's eschew in-the-streets radicalism, at least for the time being, and return to the fold. Let's go back to journalism school, law school, divinity school, even business school, and enter those realms and work our change from within those institutions."

(Of course, some Dems now feels the time is ripe for another round of in-the-streets radicalism, but many are still in suit-and-tie mode.)

The point being, Dems hate basic human freedom. They are, in fact, an enemy (along with radical Islam and Communism.)

And we know what Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome looks like. It lost Republicans the presidential elections of 1996, 2008 and 2012. It shows up in the writing of Pete Wehner, David Brooks and Jennifer Rubin.

I have long thought Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell comes in for too much ire. His ACU ratings have always been fairly high, and he as is well-versed in how to wield leverage with arcane Senate rules as they come.

But you have to ask, why doesn't more get done, with such a guy at the helm?

Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist looks into this, from the standpoint of the friendly little meeting and presser McConnell had with Trump the other day:

On Monday, President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House. One reporter asked about Steve Bannon’s plan to primary Republican senators. McConnell responded:

LEADER MCCONNELL: Look, you know, the goal here is to win elections in November. Back in 2010 and 2012, we nominated several candidates — Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock. They’re not in the Senate. And the reason for that was that they were not able to appeal to a broader electorate in the general election.

My goal as the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate is to keep us in the majority. The way you do that is not complicated. You have to have nominate people who can actually win, because winners make policy and losers go home. We changed the business model in 2014; we nominated people who could win everywhere. We took the majority in the Senate. We had one skirmish in 2016; we kept the majority in the Senate. So our operating approach will be to support our incumbents and, in open seats, to seek to help nominate people who can actually win in November. That’s my approach and that’s the way you keep a governing majority.

On the one hand, that’s absolutely true. Having “better” or “more conservative” nominees doesn’t mean much if they all lose in the general election. But has the McConnell-led establishment really done such a good job of weighing in on Republican primaries? They always like to bring up Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Todd Akin, and Richard Mourdock, who defeated more establishment opponents in early contests. But they leave out a lot of other information.

A key component of that other information is McConnell's role in the elections of the Senate's current true heroes:

 . . . there are plenty of senators McConnell opposed who made it to the Senate despite his best efforts. As it happens, these are some of the most conservative men in the Senate. McConnell strenuously fought some of these candidates, including Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Ben Sasse. Had the establishment been more open to the base of the party, they would be in a much better situation now. 

Hemingway goes on to talk about more recent sides McConnell has taken in legislative races, but the above is enough for me.

This must be remembered when taking fresh assessments of McConnell. The guy must be watched closely.