At first glance Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appears to be an unassuming, bland, and soft spoken southern good old boy. McConnell is a dream stereotype for Lorne Michaels at Saturday Night Live. You can imagine SNL depicting McConnell as the poster child for any thick headed, slow talking southern conservative. Admittedly the Kentucky senator is a slow and can look a bit goofy
But don’t be fooled. Mitch McConnell is one of the shrewdest political tacticians in the United States Senate. And he is exactly where the wants to be. After outmaneuvering Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) last night by calling for a cloture vote in which Reid lost, today he pivoted to announce that he had secretly opened up direct talks with President Obama, leaving Reid out in the cold. Earlier today he announced that he is “very close” to a deal with President Obama.
As he did last December when he crafted a deal to preserve the Bush tax cuts, McConnell is in his prime at the negotiating table. Even WaPo’s Paul Kane concurred writing today that “McConnell’s fingerprints are on every big bipartisan deal and every key spending bill to emerge from the Congress in recent years.
All eyes including this writer expected the Republican to begin direct talks with Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV). Instead, he shrewdly reached out to the White House and said let’s make a deal. This was a brilliant move. It means whatever agreement is sealed, President Obama will be co-owner.
McConnell holds the important cards at the table. As he demonstrated last night on the Senate floor, he has a united caucus of at least 41 Senators behind him. This will deny the Senate Democrats the 60 votes needed for any deficit vote. So today McConnell is the kingmaker. While we don’t know the final outlines, we can be assured it will be a creative resolution that can hand the best deal to his fellow Republicans.
This worries the Democratic party base. They have harshly criticized White House Chief of Staff William Daley as a weak negotiator and complained that he already has made too many concessions to the Republicans, including the pledge of no new taxers. Of all the scenarios to unfold, a McConnell-Daley-Obama deal strikes fear in the hearts of many progressive activists.
As McConnell has said today, whatever the outlines of the deal there will be no new taxes. “We’re not going to raise taxes in this deal,” said on the Sunday morning talk shows. “I just said that, and I will say it again. There are no tax increases in this bill.”
Among the betting is that the outlines of a broad $3 Trillion plan might emerge that will cut short term spending and set up a structure for further debt reduction including entitlements. Significant liberal sacred cows will be sacrificed and conservatives could see the first down payment on real deficit reduction. In return, there will not be another debt limit vote until the next presidential election.
If this political deal holds Obama will be seen as moving to the center while his hard core political base is left out in the cold. He could get a nice short term bounce up in the polls except for The Nation crowd. This would be be good news to deliver to Monday morning’s Wall Street opening, although it is possible that it could still result in a credit rating downgrade by October.
McConnell is a no patsy. The 69 year old Senator served as a judge and Deputy Attorney General under President Gerald Ford. His stint at Justice was at a delicate political time for the country when the nation was dealing with many post-Watergate legal issues. He floor managed President Bush’s Iraq and Afghanistan policies after September 11. He was the key player in shaping the financial bailout bill when the Congress failed to pass it and the stock market fell 700 points. And he delivered the final post-election deal with President Obama last December.
A cool and shrewd negotiator, Mitch McConnell may emerge as the true adult in the room.
So Obama won’t have to debate the deficit in 2012 because a special congressional committee will do what committees do?
Don’t worry; Obama will have to answer for his three year spending spree. Not a single domino in Europe has fallen yet; the PIIGS have been lucky so far that some sort of impactful event hasn’t occured yet and if that luck runs out by fall of 2012 then Obama will have to answer why he is taking us down the same road that Europe has been driving down. However Republicans should of course be shining light on what is happening in Europe even if one of the PIIGS doesn’t go under; it doesn’t have to be on the same level as opposing Obama’s economic stewardship, but it can be a successful background tool while educating American’s about the dangers that immense government debt can have.
You have to be kidding me. Assumming Boehner was sincere in his efforts to make a deal with Obama to cut spending; his legs were cut off by McConnell when the Senator offered Obama 2.3 trillion bucks with no cut in spending. If that was not enough the gang of six offered to raise taxes as well. Only an idiot would trust Senate Republicans.
Shrewd tactician… with no standards. Establishment Republican nonsense. That’s how we came to this juncture in the first place. It will be a politically-advantageous, crap sandwich.
I am not impressed by clever political machinations. That is what is wrong with politics.
What would impress me is if the house republicans just left town so that the debt limit remains in place and no new taxes can be passed.
The constitution was designed to make it hard for congress do do anything because the founders of this country knew that politics was dangerous. Grid lock is a feature not a bug.
The only way our Republic will be saved is the GOP is fully assimilated into the TEA Party and this new GOP takes full control of the Federal Government.
If the Democrats have their way, the USA hits the wall at 100 mph.
If the traditional GOP has its way, the USA hits the wall at 80 mph.
If the TEA Party has its way, the USA hits the wall at 40 mph.
Hitting the wall can’t be stopped, the only choice is the speed at impact.
So, from Rick Moran’s blog the “win” is going to “… raise the debt limit by about $2.7 trillion and reduce the deficit by the same amount in two steps. It would cut about $1 trillion in spending up front and set up a select bicameral committee to put together a future deficit-reduction package worth $1.7 trillion to $1.8 trillion.”
This is the latest in a long line of supposed compromises that will never come to pass.
“Hey Charlie Brown — let me hold that football again for you while you try to kick it ! I’m serious this time.”
Where are term limits when we need them ?
Yes, you are absolutely correct.
It’s always spending cuts in the far, far future. They know they cannot bind future congresses.
Where are the cuts? And why raise the debt ceiling, if no serious cuts are even a glint in a congresscritter’s eye?
If the final deal contains the select commission then taxes will be raised.
Then again, perhaps McConnell is as he first appears.
When taxes are raised I expect your mia culpa.
It was “doing the politically smart thing” in 2005 that got the Republicans kicked out of the majority in 2006.
Apparently “politically smart” is one of those varieties of “smart” that doesn’t resemble any of the others.
This is the latest in a long line of supposed compromises that will never come to pass.
“Hey Charlie Brown — let me hold that football again for you while you try to kick it ! I’m serious this time.”
Where are term limits when we need them ?
It sounds to me like McConnel and Reid are both of the “adults in the room.”
But, there is one pudgy faced infant in the room. His last name is “Lee.”
He is a senator from Utah. He says he plans to scuttle the mutual efforts of
both of the adults in the room. He wants to have a temper tantrum, and filibuster your collective efforts. Now, if he succeeds in sending the nation
into default by wasting everyone’s time tomorrow (Monday), what will his political party look like in a year’s time?? His diaper needs to be changed now.
Any compromise that is so opaque that it remains unknowable even after it it is passed marks a new level of governmental intransigence.
The only way to save the nation is to stop the spending now; our government is not going to do that, it’s not even going to slow the increase in spending. They think that they’re too big to fail.
Default now and let’s get on with life.