Last year now-former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would not run for Majority Leader – or as we thought of him in that role, “Impediment in Chief” to governing America according to conservative principles.
Now, the ailing McConnell has announced he will not run for reelection.
In a floor speech which coincided with his 83rd birthday, McConnell (R-Ky.) recounted how his journey from interning for former Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.) to leading the Republican conference for 18 years fulfilled “a childhood dream.”
“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate. Every day in between I’ve been humbled by the trust they’ve placed in me to do their business right here,” McConnell said in the address, as reported by The New York Post.
“Thanks to Ronald Reagan’s determination, the work of strengthening American hard power was well underway when I arrived in the Senate,” he went on.
“But since then, we’ve allowed that power to atrophy. And today, a dangerous world threatens to outpace the work of rebuilding it. So, lest any of our colleagues still doubt my intentions for the remainder of my term: I have some unfinished business to attend to.”
McConnell’s one contribution to conservative governance was his vigorous campaign to completely remake the US Supreme Court by creating a conservative majority during the first Trump administration with the installation of three justices — after having blocked Merrick Garland’s appointment under President Barack Obama.
Beyond that Mitch McConnell’s legacy – at least among conservatives – is as the “Impediment in Chief” to reining-in federal spending and governing America according to constitutional conservative principles.
When the Tea Party first came into being – foreshadowing the MAGA Movement, “Republican Leader” McConnell raised and spent millions in lobbyist cash to defeat Tea Party-backed Republicans, in some case allowing seats to fall to Democrats, rather than populist Republicans.
McConnell was the architect of practically every spending bill over the past two decades and his appetite for pork barrel spending, and the example that set for other Republican Senators contributed mightily to our current $37 trillion national debt and our multi-trillion-dollar deficits over the past decades.
Crucial to getting this spending spree passed was a strategy of government by crisis in which every spending vote was postponed until the last minute before the government technically ran out of money, or Congress was set to adjourn.
And Mitch McConnell didn’t just spend, he also used all of his considerable power and energy to kill any legislation that might stop the ruinous onslaught on the Treasury, for example by killing the popular Cut, Cap and Balance plan to balance the budget, and crafting phony budget “cap” legislation that was routinely waived.
As bad as Mitch McConnell has been he still occasionally surprises conservatives by doing the right thing, as he did yesterday when he voted in favor of Kash Patel to head the FBI.
We are glad to see him go, but we wish Mitch McConnell nothing but sunny days in his retirement. However, we invite conservatives in Kentucky to get to work NOW to find a conservative candidate to fill that seat, lest Mitch McConnell’s still considerable influence in the Blue Grass State allow a member of his anti-conservative political operation to draft-in behind him.
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