Saturday, March 02, 2013

Mitch McConnell's "outrage" masks weakness

Readers will awaken Sunday to national news coverage of the most powerful Republican in Washington D.C. hurling a boulder at two liberal Louisville activists for suggesting erroneously on Twitter that his wife is from China.

This is what passes for the "ultimate outrage" at a time in which we strain at petty slights but swallow whole imaginary fiscal crises like the sequester and big government blunders like providing funding for ObamaCare.

It is these latter issues which will haunt Sen. McConnell in the upcoming Republican primary for the seat he has occupied since his election in 1984. Long after this fainting goat routine runs its course, Sen. McConnell will have to run on his record.

Republican primary voters looking for seriousness in fiscal reform are in no mood to swoon for professional politicians who have become millionaires at the public trough trying to play the victim in such a transparent manner.

Sen. McConnell's bailout and corporate welfare chickens will come home to roost in 2014. Expect a Republican replacement to be there to clean up the mess. Republican primary voters either know or can easily be reminded about how Mitch ran Jim Bunning out of the Senate for standing up to the status quo and that we wouldn't still be playing Charlie Brown to Obama's Lucy on debt ceiling deals if he hadn't facilitated the debt ceiling increase and sequestration fraud in 2011.