Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) announced a challenge for the Minority Leader position held by Mitch McConnell on Tuesday.
“I’m writing to you today because I believe it’s time for the Senate Republican Conference to be far more bold and resolute than we have been in the past. We must start saying what we are for, not just what we are against,” Scott said in a letter to GOP colleagues. “I do not believe we can simply continue to say the Democrats are radical, which they are. Republican voters expect and deserve to know our plan to promote and advance conservative values. ”
Scott wants to take a more policy-oriented approach, taking on Democrats where they’ve clearly failed.
“For those who want to get serious about ending reckless government spending and the devastating inflation it has caused, finally take action to protect Social Security and Medicare and preserve the promise of these programs for our children and grandchildren, hold government accountable from the FBI to the IRS, truly combat the extreme danger posed by Communist China and refocus our military on lethal defense instead of woke nonsense, I ask for your support in changing the direction of the Senate and rescuing America from the dangerous path Democrats have set it on,” Scott wrote.
Of course, Republicans — even with Scott leading them — will be unable to do anything on any of those issues because Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, both screwed the pooch and lost a golden opportunity to wrest Senate control from the Democrats.
Scott has little chance of unseating McConnell. The minority leader is about to become the longest-serving Senate leader from either party in history, and he appears to easily have the votes to be re-elected.
But the infighting comes at a very bad time. There is still one Senate seat up for grabs, and if Herschel Walker is going to have much of a chance, McConnell and Scott are going to have to bury the hatchet and unite to defeat what’s sure to be an intense effort to keep the seat blue.
Democrats, already gloating about GOP’s divisions in the aftermath of the midterms, see Scott’s challenge as more of the same.
Senate Republicans spent roughly three hours on Tuesday venting to each other about the party’s poor performance in the midterms, an unusually long meeting that exposed deep frustrations about the conference’s inability to capitalize on President Joe Biden’s middling popularity and rising inflation. Republicans failed to flip any Democratic seats and are consigned to the minority for two more years, prompting some GOP senators to loudly complain in the private lunch that their lack of a unified agenda cost the party.
“We very seldom get involved in any significant policy consideration. We play defense against Democrats,” griped Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who is planning a run for governor in 2024 and will support Scott.
McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund spent $400 million, while Scott’s NRSC spent $344 million on Senate races and came up shamefully short. Were funds allocated intelligently? Some members want an audit of the NRSC to answer that question.
According to two people familiar with the discussion, [Senator Marsha] Blackburn told Scott during the meeting that there needed to be an accounting of how money was spent, and that it was important for senators to have a greater understanding of how and why key decisions involving financial resources were made. To move forward, Blackburn said, the party needed to determine what mistakes were made.
{Senator Tom] Tillis spoke out in support of the idea, arguing that there should also be a review of the committee’s spending during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, which would allow for a comparison to be made.
There will be some focus on the withdrawal of the NRSC from Arizona in the last few weeks of the race. The GOP candidate Blake Masters lost to incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly by 225,000 votes, and one wonders what he could have done with an infusion of cash from Rick Scott’s campaign group.
McConnell is in no danger of defeat. Scott might get 10-12 votes out of 50, meaning that McConnell will be easily re-elected. But the GOP leadership is on notice that members want to participate more in the decision-making process.
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