By: Glenn Thrush and Manu Raju
December 23, 2010 04:31 AM EST
For two years, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) maintained iron discipline over his 40-to-42-member conference, mustered a mostly united opposition against the White House — and helped define the GOP as “the party of no” in the eyes of critics.
But in the waning days of the 111th Congress, the White House and Democrats think they have finally found a crack in Fortress McConnell. On two critical pieces of legislation — the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military and the START agreement with Russia — Republican moderates defied their leadership and backed two major priorities of President Barack Obama.
McConnell publicly opposed both — and underscored that point during an appearance on CNN last Sunday, geared, in part, at halting momentum for the deal on the arms control treaty.
People close to the laconic, deliberate GOP leader minimized the two votes, saying McConnell was simply respecting the diversity of his caucus and had delegated the whipping operation to other Republicans. Moreover, they cite several lame-duck victories — extending the Bush-era tax cuts to all income groups, killing both the $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill and the DREAM Act — and say the conference will re-unite early next year when the focus returns to issues of taxing and spending.
But the two lame-duck votes suggest that the GOP's six-seat pick-up in November may, paradoxically, complicate matters for the man who had come to embody Republican resistance in the age of the Obama. And while nobody in the White House thinks McConnell has lost his grip, they see an opportunity to increase their leverage as McConnell finds himself squeezed between an incoming class of emboldened conservatives with a tea party tinge - and the eight to twelve Republicans who showed their independence on “don’t ask, don’t tell” and START.
After two years of nonstop Democratic infighting, the White House is clearly enjoying the possibility of a GOP family feud — and are closely watching how the old-school McConnell meshes with new-breed Republicans like Utah’s Mike Lee, a strict constitutionalist who won’t vote for anything James Madison would have rejected, and tea party idol Rand Paul, a fellow Kentuckian whose election McConnell initially opposed.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday suggested that McConnell “miscalculated” in the lame-duck by failing to “put aside partisan political interests” on START.
Sen. Chris Dodd, the retiring Connecticut Democrat, said McConnell’s position reflected the influence of the tea-party wing of the party. “I think Mitch was overplaying his hand. It was a case of the tail wagging the dog.”
"It was crazy opposing START — crazy — and he shouldn't have done it. I don't think Mitch is terribly comfortable with the tea party types," added Dodd, who has served with McConnell for over two decades.
“It will be interesting to see if he will dance to their tune or try to make them dance to his,” said an Obama ally. “Either way, it will be fun to watch.”
McConnell, in an interview with POLITICO last week, said he was simply "try[ing] as best I can to keep as many of us together as I can. Even when we were down to 40, from Olympia-to-DeMint is a pretty diverse group," referring to Maine moderate Olympia Snowe and South Carolina firebrand Jim DeMint, a tea party leader.
"[W]e've had everybody singing out of the same book a remarkable percentage of the time,” he added.
But that percentage is dropping, at least at the moment.
Earlier this week, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, among the most independent Senate Republicans, expressed disgust that the GOP leadership allowed Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to enjoy the most successful lame-duck session in decades.
"Harry Reid has eaten our lunch," Graham told Fox News radio. "This has been a capitulation in two weeks of dramatic proportions of policies that wouldn't have passed in the new Congress."
With the president on the ropes after the Nov. 2 midterms, McConnell bucked some conservatives — championed by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer — by agreeing to a landmark bipartisan deal with Obama to temporarily extend the Bush-era tax cuts for all taxpayers, including the wealthy, a central McConnell policy priority. Yet in doing so, McConnell knew he was allowing Obama to regain the political initiative and reclaim his lost mantle of bipartisanship.
And when McConnell went back into partisan mode — backing Minority Whip Jon Kyl and Sen. John McCain, both of Arizona, in an unsuccessful bid to defeat “don’t ask, don’t tell” and START — he found himself, uncharacteristically, on the wrong side of public opinion and in opposition to a sizable minority in his own conference.
For much of the 111th Congress, McConnell had to worry about defections by two or three of his conference, most notably Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, along with retiring Ohio moderate/conservative George Voinovich and, at times, Massachusetts freshman Scott Brown.
But eight Republicans defied leadership on “don’t ask, don’t tell” — Collins, Snowe, Voinovich, Brown, freshman Mark Kirk of Illinois, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and two conservatives, John Ensign of Nevada and Richard Burr of North Carolina. Thirteen bucked McConnell on START, including Indiana Republican Dick Lugar, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who worked hand-in-glove with administration officials on the treaty, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a member of the GOP leadership.
“McConnell picks his battles very, very carefully,” said Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah), who was unseated by Lee. “There are some in leadership who don’t. McConnell picks fights he can win. Once he picks one he thinks he can win, he almost always does.”
START was different, he said, because McConnell simply outlined his own personal preference on the bill — knowing a substantial number of Republicans would eventually vote differently.
“That’s a different kind of message than this is something where the entire conference has to be,” Bennett added.
Added McConnell spokesman Don Stewart: “The only bills that had a change in partisan makeup after the election were the [omnibus appropriations] bill and the tax bill. ... Before the election, Democrats were bragging about raising taxes; after the election and Sen. McConnell’s leadership, nobody will see a tax hike next year.”
Yet Democrats see signs that McConnell may be off his game. His claim that his 2012 objective was to unseat Obama may have appeased his party's right wing, but it has tested extremely poorly in Democratic-sponsored focus groups of independent voters, according to a party official. In an interview last week, McConnell responded to Democratic complaints about him by telling POLITICO, “There’s much for [Democrats] to be angst-ridden about. ... If they think it’s bad now, wait till next year.”
Meanwhile, Obama has adopted a feel-good tone of bipartisan comity, appealing to independents turned off by the partisan rancor of the past two years.
“My sense is the Republicans recognize that with greater power is going to come greater responsibility,” he said at a news conference Wednesday before flying to Hawaii for his Christmas vacation. “And some of the progress that I think we saw in the lame duck was a recognition on their part that people are going to be paying attention to what they're doing as well as what I'm doing and what the Democrats in Congress are doing.”
But some liberals question whether the re-emergence of the GOP’s moderate wing is a lasting phenomenon or an opportunistic one-shot deal for Republicans to cast votes that were popular in their home states.
"[Republicans] were in lockstep again to shoot down the omnibus,” said Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski. “I think [McConnell] will give his people more latitude on issues of war and peace, issues of conscience, but not on spending bills," she predicted.
Indeed, when Democrats tried to move their agenda forward early in the lame-duck session, McConnell got all 42 of his senators to vow to block all legislation unless a government-funding bill was approved and the Bush-era tax cuts were extended.
In the next Congress, McConnell plans to also insist that Democrats allow more open debate on amendments on the floor and will unify his caucus if he feels like they are being "jammed."
"On taxes and spending, we've got clear instructions from the people of this country and most of us feel exactly the same way about it," said Alexander, the only member of the GOP leadership to back the arms pact with Russia. "The New START treaty is for every individual Republican senator and Democratic senator for that matter to make their minds up about it."
But McConnell has his eye on other issues as well, including entitlement reform, which he said is needed to slash the deficit and would require an "aggressive" push from Obama in order to generate bipartisan support.
Still, that could come at a risk — and Democrats think the lame-duck gives them hope they can reverse some of the 2010 losses in 2012.
"I think the pendulum moves very quickly right now," said Alaska Sen. Mark Begich.
© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC
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