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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Uniting to Oppose McConnell

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  July 19th, 2011 at 06:31 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I have joined FreedomWorks, American Majority Action, Let Freedom Ring, and the Club For Growth in drafting a letter to Republicans in Congress opposing the McConnell Plan. Of particular note, considering who all is on board this letter, is this paragraph:

We will refrain from backing any Member of Congress or candidate for federal office, or a leadership position in a Republican Caucus, who supports the McConnell—Reid—Pelosi “Cut, Run, and Hide” plan, to the extent that our various legal structures  and rules allow.

I hope other conservative organizations will pay attention to this and sign on. Mitch McConnell is advancing his plan not to save the country or solve the debt crisis, but to position himself, individually, to be Senate Majority Leader.

The best way to stop McConnell’s Plan to kick the can down the road is to end his career prospects.

You can read the whole letter here in PDF form.

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COMMENTS

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  • radicalrighty

    I hope they can read . . .

  • vamoose

    It is beyond me how Mitch thinks that the same tactics that led to the GOP losing the majority in the senate will somehow restore him to the position of senate majority leader. This is an important letter to let McConnell know that he cannot count on the support of the same conservatives and their constituents that he has betrayed with his drive-by proposal.

  • http://www.sunshinestatesarah.com SunshineStateSarah

    Good for y’all for taking this stand.

    http://www.redstate.com/sunshinestatesarah/2011/07/19/my-message-to-house-republicans/

  • __t_i_m_o_t_h_y__

    Thank you for going on offense, Eric.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    I am calling Webster Fl 08 to point this out to him. Rubio as well.

    thanks again

  • Matt In The Hook

    Why are we focusing on McConnell when the real fight is against Obama? I really don’t understand the outrage here. No, I am not a fan of McConnell’s plan. I don’t think we’d be better off with McConnell’s buddy Trey Greyson in the Senate. But this whole line of action seems to be utterly pointless to me.

    As a commenter said in a previous thread, one thing that McConnell knows is how to count votes. That might be all that he understands and I guess that makes him better as a whip than a leader, but whatever. That’s inside baseball.

    The real problem is that our leaders and our caucus misplayed this. We should have started with the Ryan plan as the basis for negotiations over the debt ceiling in the House. And in the Senate, Coburn should have come out with his plan a long time ago. You can’t negotiate, threaten or cajole when your own caucus is not united and ours was not at the start. Boehner had reduced leverage because he didn’t have the votes for a ceiling raise with a GOP-only plan so there was no starting point. There were just too many people on the record saying they’d NEVER raise the debt ceiling which is just an idiotic stance.

    Oh yeah, and no matter what anyone says, prioritizing payments is a form of default. I take everything the ratings agencies say with a gigantic grain of salt since they missed the Asian crisis in the 90s, missed the financial crisis of a few years ago and missed the start of the soverign debt crisis. But prioritizing interest, SS, Medicare and military payments over other legally-required spending is indeed a form of default and would touch off at least substantial worries in the bond market. Right now the market does not believe our leaders are stupid enough to fail to come to some agreement but I wouldn’t put it past them to be just that.

    Personally, I see a good plan as one that embraces all the “cuts” in the Biden negotiations with no tax increases or loophole closings commensurate with topline rate reductions. That would give us $2.5T in spending reduction and a ton of breathing room on the debt ceiling. It would also be impossible, politically, for Obama to veto especially if the GOP fully endorses additional negotiations to begin immediately after Obama signs the deal.

    We’re wasting time training fire on McConnell when we should be getting behind something that can pass (Cut, Cap and Balance just won’t, sorry) and then gearing up immediately for the NEXT fight. We control one house of Congress. That’s it. Why not be satisfied with incremental progress while ensuring what passes also does no additional harm? That’s what passing $2.5T in reductions with no additional revenues would do.

  • Matt In The Hook

    How is McConnell positioning himself to be majority leader a bad thing? That would mean the GOP controls the chamber and that can’t be a negative.

    Again, I’m not a fan of the plan. It’s too cute by half and I think the public sees right through it. Not technically being in favor of the ceiling being raised means nothing once you’ve handed over control of it being raised to the president. Plus it really is an abdication of leadership and what the public wants more than spending cuts or reduction of government’s size or anything else is LEADERSHIP. They want our political leaders to be competent and this plan reeks of passing the buck. But I still believe spending so much time lighting it up and training our fire on McConnell is a waste when the person truly abidcating leadership, Obama, is getting off scot-free.

  • bk

    “…it abdicates Congressional responsibility by granting the President the unilateral authority to raise the debt ceiling….”

    If McConnell says Obama can raise the debt ceiling any way other than via a bill that passes both houses and gets Obama’s signature, that’s the same as saying Obama can pick any number he chooses and doesn’t have to involve Congress at all.

    I can’t for the life of me understand why almost no one seems to have noticed that. I’m glad it’s one of the points highlighted here and I hope it gets pointed out more often.

  • gawken

    In caps….

    “THe wave election of 2010, to whiuch many of you owe your jobs, AND THE GOP OWES ITS MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE…”

  • red_oakster

    By threatening all Republican officials who ultimately support a compromise, conservative activists set a goal that can’t possibly be achieved.

    You’re going to spend resources trying to bring down Boehner in a primary? Cantor (whom Erick was promoting for Veep in 2008)? Paul Ryan? Because all of these folks will sign off on whatever deal is passed.

  • baserunr

    McConnell’s plan codifies the lack of leadership, and makes Obama look like he has achieved a great compromise, and in essence abdicates all power over Federal spending to Obama. The entire problem with this idiotic plan is that there are NO CONSEQUNECES to Obama. And McConnell won’t have to worry about being Majority Leader. He’s killed the prospect all by himself. Obama and the Dems couldn’t have done a better job of de-motivating the conservative base if they had tried.

    I said the conservative base, not the Republican base. They’re not the same thing.

  • Matt In The Hook

    I’m not a fan of the plan. But why expend energy threatening people who support McConnell when you could instead push towards something positive like adopting Coburn’s proposal or something.

  • Matt In The Hook

    I’m not a fan of the plan. But why expend energy threatening people who support McConnell when you could instead push towards something positive like adopting Coburn’s proposal or something.

  • mboyle1988

    Dear Mr. Erickson,

    I respect you more than just about any conservative pundit out there. You are unquestionably a leader in the Conservative movement. I am asking a big favor. As someone who deeply opposes the actions of Mitch McConnell, I feel that it is time to get serious and let the minority leader know that his Pontius Pilate fiasco is not okay with the base. I am asking you to please craft a letter that we, the readers of RedState, can sign, promising Mitch that, if he allows Obama the sweeping power to increase the debt ceiling without congressional approval, we will, without question, defeat him in his 2014 primary, that we will not rest until we have identified a true conservative candidate for Kentucky, and until we have united to fund said candidate and get the message out that McConnell is just a liberal in disguise. True conservatives don’t compromise principles for political gain. Those that try will be defeated.

  • mboyle1988

    We should write letters to EVERY Republican promising to work tirelessly to primary ANYONE who votes in favor of the abdication. I mean, maybe we give the Northeastern RINOs a pass because they’d almost certainly be replaced with actual Communists given that the Northeast resembles Europe more than America anymore, unfortunately, but…Bob Corker, say hello to Marsha Blackburn, your replacement. Richard effing Lugar? Bye bye. I want blood if my party goes down the McConnell road. And lots of it. NO MORE MODERATES! NO MORE COMPROMISES! NO MORE WIMPY MEN AND WOMEN TALKING ABOUT HOW THE SENATE IS COLLEGIAL! I don’t want collegial. I want war. I want to pound the liberals into the ground, give them no room to express their wrong opinions, and no room to mess up the country any further than they already have.

  • bs61

    You have been all over this from the beginning! And I’ve been calling them every day!

  • ThePoliticalHat

    Who do you all suggest we support as an alternative?

    Specifically, one who can unite conservatives and moderates, while nonetheless helping shift things towards fiscal sanity?

    I ask, because the last thing we need is to replace McConnell with someone more squishy.

    I know the best we can do until ’13 is probably limit the damage Obama does, so who will play that role the best?

  • http://www.sheetanchor.org Sheet Anchor

    against Mcconnell’s plan to cede power to Obama instead of using his leadership position to stop Obama at all costs.

    I agree with mboyle1988; we need a petition/letter of some sort from the base to fully deliver the message to all Republicans in the Congress.

  • littlehouse18

    not to stop any plan at all. The McConnell plan will make the base go away and help Obama get re-elected. There is a real fear that this could happen.

  • littlehouse18

    ..

  • baserunr

    Politicians need to be advised of the consequences of their actions. The only ones who think McConnell’s plan is a good idea are other politicians, and most of them liberal. Those that support it need to be advised that there will be repercussions. Not just because it is useful politically, but because it is the right thing to do. Supporting this insipid plan is bad for everyone, R’s, D’s, and all others. Especially the young and yet-unborn, who will have to pay off this monstrous debt.

  • Ned Reck

    Y’all really don’t understand….

    McConnell is the best dang Democrat that the Republicans have ever elected as leader. Heck… as far as wool-over-the-the-eyes pullin’… he puts Harry Reid to shame.

    Harry and Mitch…

    I know… I know… just a good ol’ dose of good cop, bad cop.. and sometimes it’s hard to tell them ol’ boys apart…

    Reid: a perpetual Majority Leader… and Mitch: a perpetually complacent Minority Leader. But that’s just the way Mitch is in D.C.

    Mitch’s favorite philosophy… “You let me scratch your back, Harry… and then I’ll scratch your back.”

    Ned Reck