Campaign Action
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has one goal: 50 senators voting "yes" on a motion to proceed to something on Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, even if what they're voting to proceed to remains a big secret. He has to keep that ball in the air though, and promises to keep up the beatings until his caucus submits.
It seems like a long shot. But McConnell may be playing the long game — making his members walk the plank not as an act of desperation but as part of a strategy that just might work. He's used it before to get what he wants.
If the vote fails, "I don't think it's over," said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate leadership. "We're going to need a little longer runway to get to 50 votes on something."
"Even if we fail on the procedural vote next week," Thune added," all that really does is say 'OK, we'll regroup and then take another run at this.'" […]
Still, holding a doomed vote is unusual for McConnell, who typically goes to great lengths to protect his members from politically difficult votes.
"Everybody has to be held personally accountable," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has been furiously whipping the repeal effort. "Everybody is a good enough politician that if they've got a reason to justify their vote, they'll be able to sell that."
There isn't a good enough politician in the world to justify passing legislation that takes health care away from a minimum of 20 million people. There just isn't. But that's not McConnell's major concern right now, it seems. He's fighting to justify his own existence, and to prove that the party isn't totally spinning out of control. Good luck.
Make your Republican senator feel the heat. Call their office EVERY DAY at (202) 224-3121 to demand that they say NO to repealing Obamacare and ripping health care away from millions of Americans. After your call, tell us how it went.
Frustrated lawmakers are increasingly sounding off at a White House awash in turmoil and struggling to accomplish its legislative goals. President Trump is scolding Republican senators over health care and even threatening electoral retribution. Congressional leaders are losing the confidence of their rank and file. And some major GOP donors are considering using their wealth to try to force out recalcitrant incumbents. […]
"It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President," Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday afternoon, marking the latest sign of the president's uneasy relationship with his own party.
Winning control of both chambers and the White House has done little to fill in the deep and politically damaging ideological fault lines that plagued the GOP during Barack Obama's presidency and ripped the party apart during the 2016 presidential primary. Now, Republicans have even more to lose.
Seven months into this year, six months into this administration, and nothing has been accomplished legislatively except undoing things. The president is historically unpopular. Trumpcare is laughably unpopular, while Obamacare is enjoying majority support for the first time. McConnell's only response is to try what he's done before with success: destroy the norms of the institution he leads in order to accomplish his goals. It's a testament to how far the Republican party has fallen morally that it's more than possible 50 Republican senators will follow him into that abyss.
The only upside if they do it is that 15 or more million people losing their health care next year could be the undoing of Republican control of Congress. That's a very high price to pay.