Talk Elections

But the cost will be that the legislative body he leads and has long claimed to deeply value will be changed forever.

That’s because the tactics McConnell is using to get his win — which have entailed previously unimaginable amounts of secrecy, speed (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/21/15804768/republican-health-bill-secret), and utter disregard for public opinion (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/28/suffolk-poll-obamacare-trump-senate-health-care-plan/103249346/) — are a blueprint that future Senate majorities will surely use for their own purposes (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/15/15787626/mitch-mcconnell-single-payer-medicare-all).

“McConnell has unleashed a whole series of forces that ultimately could really transform the Senate in a bad way,” says Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. “And if these tactics succeed, they’re going to be emulated.”

This is ironic because McConnell has long claimed to have deeply held beliefs about the unique role the Senate should play in American politics.

Because a simple majority is not enough to get things done in the Senate, the chamber is a “moderating institution” that should “keep the government from swinging between extremes as one party loses power and another gains it,” he wrote in his memoir, The Long Game.

If you ask his critics on both the left and right, there’s no mystery to what ultimately drives the Senate majority leader.

“The cardinal rule of McConnell is he will do anything to acquire more power, or to achieve an outcome he thinks achieves his political interest,” says Adam Jentleson, a former aide to ex-Democratic leader Harry Reid.

“I don’t think he’s a conservative; I think he’s a transactionalist. I think he wants to keep the title of majority leader,” says Jason Pye of the conservative activist group Freedomworks. “His vested interest is taking power.”

As for McConnell’s own view? In his memoir, he’s surprisingly candid: He mainly got into politics because of ambition.

In public, McConnell remained a loyal partisan, and publicly excoriated Democrats for wanting to “retreat.” In private, though, he sought a one-on-one meeting with Bush, warned him that Republicans were headed for defeat in the midterms, and urged the president to start withdrawing troops from Iraq to help the party’s chances.

McConnell’s minority filibustered to try to block not only controversial bills and nominations but also uncontroversial ones. The filibuster became an omnipresent threat through which McConnell could extract concessions, delay action, or waste precious Senate floor time. “He ramped up the tactics of mass obstruction in a way we had never seen before,” says Ornstein.