Mitch McConnell to Tea Party-'Bring it on'

By Alexander Bolton - 02/14/14 06:00 AM EST

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) delivered a message to Tea Party critics when he cast a decisive vote Wednesday that led to Senate passage of a debt ceiling hike: Bring it on.

In perhaps his most defining moment in the 113th Congress, McConnell strode up to the dais and declared his “aye” vote in a clear voice heard throughout the chamber. It broke the impasse and seven more Republicans soon voted as well to end the filibuster.

It was a risky decision for McConnell, who is facing a difficult primary battle from businessman Matt Bevin, a conservative backed by Tea Party groups.

McConnell’s vote broke a filibuster by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that was backed by the Club for Growth, which helped defeat former Sens. Bob Bennett (Utah) and Dick Lugar (Ind.) in Republican primaries in 2010 and 2012 but has stayed out of McConnell’s race so far.

His colleagues hoped Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), a centrist Republican, would provide the needed 60th vote but Murkowski refused unless the GOP leadership team joined her, according to a source who was on the floor during the standoff.

Supporters of McConnell inside and outside the Senate said it was a moment of real leadership for the longtime Kentucky senator, who over the past year has voted more often than now with Tea Party groups as he readied for the tough primary challenge.

They viewed it as a sign that McConnell, always a supporter of the Senate as an institution, will not be cowed by pressure from outside groups.


http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/198391-mcconnells-bring-it-on-moment#ixzz2tJK9TPPm


No one can make a good case that McConnell's "aye" vote on the Debt Ceiling was not a full-out slap in the face to the Tea Party. And given his primary fight, an indication that he feels "safer" voting for the DC hike....than he worries about Matt Bevin posing a real risk to him for the GOP Nomination in May.

If he truly was worried about Bevin, he would have supported Cruz's demand for 60 votes and let the bill languish. Or he would have found some way to wrangle the votes without HIS OWN vote being necessary.

 

McConnell Debt Ceiling Payoff? $2 billion for Kentucky dam project

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was part of the leadership who brought today’s debt-ceiling legislation into play. The Republican certainly has been labeled a member of the RINO club in the past, but was he willing to fold in part for a $2 billion federal payoff?

yup....

 

Matt Bevin loses?.....Tea Party is dead or atleast shown to be impotent. McConnell clearly telling them to go eff themselves with that Debt Ceiling vote.


((BTW, shouldn't you be trying to change the subject to President Obama or Democrats or leftists now? ))

 

The TEA Party can go after McConnell all they want, he ain't going nowhere.

 

Never say never.

 

Some of the wingnuts are trying to pretend that Cruz wasn't mounting a filibuster.

 

Matt Bevin HAS to win the GOP Primary in Kentucky for the Tea Partyers now......he fails? McConnell has shown that neither he nor ANY OTHER REPUBLICAN...need "fear" the Tea Party and their impotent threats.

 

I don't live in Kentucky but if I did my vote against McConnell in the primary would be automatic.

He's not a bad man but too long in Washington makes politicians forget the ideals that they came there with.

In Texas George P. Bush is running for land commissioner and I plan to vote against him just because he's part of the Bush dynasty.

 

It's like the Donner party. They're starting to feast on their own.

 

CRUZ tries to pretend he didn't push the Shutdown. Oh, he was all for it and wanted to be given "credit" for it.....before it blew up in the GOP's face and crashed their approval numbers.


Calgary Ted is a gutless wonder.

 

I think somebody already cracked that joke....but it's still true. But I think the Frankenstein analogy is best.....GOP "built" the Tea Party as cover for Dubya supporters, so they could pretend they were "something new"...."fiscal conservatives" (who said NOTHING about Bush's deficits and debt)....and were "bipartisan".

All of which proved to be lies....they were simply the Same Ol' Republican Base.

Problem for the GOP was....the "Monster" started believing its own hype.

 

The Republican led congress passed spending that would allow the government to stay open. The Democrat run Senate is the party that refused to keep the government open.

Those are facts... you liberals can have your alternate reality, but you cannot have your alternate facts.

 

Really?

Do you view election to congress as the same thing as a lifetime appointment to the federal court?

 

Ummm no its not maybe in your dream world of rewrite history.

 

I'm sure everybody INSIDE the Rightwing Media Echo Chamber believes that.

Outside?...the polls show that the Shutdown plunged the GOP to its lowest approval EVER.

 

Most of the idiots can't define "filibuster", like those people who claim he was doing one.

 

No, I view that those saying Mitch McConnell is a "liberal"....or John Cornyn.....or Lindsey Graham....is the sign of a Party's Base so radicalized and on the fringe that if they didn't know his name, would think RONALD REAGAN was a "Commie".

 

I asked a Rightwinger one time about why the GOP House from 2003 to 2006 didn't overturn Dodd-Frank, which he blamed for the housing bubble crash.....and he said-

"Because Democrats in the House would have filibustered it!!!!!"

Never mentioned the Senate...was strictly talking about the House under Denny Hastert.

 

Your devotion to McConnell is touching but also fake.

Democrats are just zombies who reelect their politicians without even thinking about it.

But conservative republicans think for themselves and do not goose step behind every incumbent in their party.

I like McConnell but what's wrong with new blood who are not tied to the Washington establishment.

 

The Civil War in the GOP is LITERALLY the ideological real Civil War we fought.
It's between the logical and reasonable progressive conservative vs the backward, primitive, religiously fundamental, and often racist Tea Party.

 

I see it as the corrupt big government Washington establishment against the republican base voters.

 

Actually, the Republican-led House not only shut down the government but rigged the system so that only one house member, Eric Cantor, could re-open the government.

[video=youtube;0Jd-iaYLO1A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jd-iaYLO1A[/video]

The video above is a Democrat motioning to re-open government, but being denied by a Republican due to the standing rule alteration done by Republicans.

So, not only did the GOP shut down the government, but they took measures to prevent it from re-opening.

 

Where did you get the idea I am "devoted" to McConnell? I'd love to see him lose....Bevin get the nomination...and Alison Grimes smoke him in the General Election, soon as Matt pulled one of the Tea Party Candidate flubs like talking about how "pregnancy from rape may be God's plan".

And if you "like McConnell"?.....where are you DEFENSES of him against the Tea Partyers calling him a "sell out"....a "RINO"....even a "liberal"??? I haven't seen it.

 

Same folks who oppose abortion rights and gay rights....call themselves Tea Partyers, and vice-versa. What do those issues have to do with "fiscal conservatism"!?!?!?

 

You mean the way Ted Cruz or Mike Lee lost their Tea Party bids to the senate?

Libs know they can push McConnell around and that's why you are so worried about his future.