Divide and Conquer

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has settled in on his election-year strategy: Identify issues that unite his caucus but divide the other party, then use them to drive a wedge between the White House and congressional Democrats. At the top of his list: the administration’s handling of terrorism cases. Replicating his pattern of relentless, blistering speeches against President Barack Obama’s health care proposal and his plan to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, McConnell has begun attacking Obama’s plan to try terrorism suspects in civilian courts — and he’s taking aim directly at Attorney General Eric Holder. “The core question is whether the attorney general of the United States ought to be in charge of the war on terror,” McConnell said. “And the answer is no.” McConnell hopes moderate Democrats will join Republicans in blocking funding for any civilian trials of terrorism suspects — a would-be GOP victory the party’s candidates could trumpet on the campaign trail throughout this election year.

The White House and its allies have pushed back hard against McConnell’s attacks, noting that the Bush administration took similar tacks with other terrorism suspects — and that neither McConnell nor his Republican colleagues offered much criticism at the time. “Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security,” Holder said in a letter to McConnell last week. McConnell, 67 and in his fourth year as minority leader, is much more free to engage on the issues this year than he was in 2008, when he faced a tough reelection bid of his own.

Having won a fifth term, he’s liberated to attack wherever he thinks it will do his party the most good — as he did last year, when he decided early on that the Democrats’ health care bill deserved “bipartisan defeat.” Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said McConnell’s political instincts “are pretty close to flawless.”

Democrats blame McConnell for bottling up Senate business by throwing up an unprecedented number of procedural hurdles to stall action. Still, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, head of the Senate Democratic campaign efforts, says that McConnell lacks the national name recognition needed to make him the foil for Democrats’ 2010 campaign. “I think there’s a real price to be paid for being obstructionists, and at the end of the day, it’s our challenge to make sure people know the difference and what that means in their lives,” Menendez said. Under McConnell, Menendez added, the Republicans are “pretty disciplined in just following whatever message they choose to adopt. However, some of the members of his caucus he just can’t control.

And they take him far afield from even where he wants to go.”

Indeed, last week several conservative Republicans introduced legislation to impose a one-year ban on the practice of earmarking money for pet projects as one way to restore trust in Washington and tackle what the GOP says is Capitol Hill’s out-of-control spending. Asked if the GOP leadership should endorse his proposal, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said: “I think anyone who doesn’t sign up for it is in that group that doesn’t get it. And we’ll see who signs up for it.” But McConnell, an appropriator who pointed to pet projects he brought home as he campaigned for reelection in 2008, doesn’t seem to have much appetite for making that an issue for his party this year.

“I do fear that if we turn 100 percent of the authority over to the president, the money will be spent in Chicago,” McConnell said. “That may not be my constituents’ first choice.” Similarly, with his caucus divided over the fate of Ben Bernanke, who was nominated to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman, McConnell steadfastly refused to take a position, either publicly or in private meetings with his caucus — until it came time for a vote last month. He was a yes. “The one thing about leadership is that you never go against your troops, or you won’t be a leader very long,” said Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, McConnell’s No. 2. Last month, when the Senate rejected a commission to recommend ways to slash the national debt, McConnell — along with several other Republicans — reversed his position on the measure and opposed it, inviting fierce Democratic criticism that the Republican leader was playing political games.

“He was for it before he was against it,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota, one of the sponsors of the bipartisan bill. McConnell said that he wants such a commission structured so that it’s focused on cutting the rising level of government spending — not on raising taxes. But rather than fight every aspect of Obama’s domestic agenda, McConnell is selecting a handful of issues where he wants to engage in head-to-head combat with the White House. In part, that’s because he wants to create a clear us-versus-them contrast between the two parties, and in part it’s because he sees some areas as ripe for bipartisan progress — including offshore drilling, increased nuclear power and a renewed emphasis on trade agreements.

“We were not sent up here to just engage in political strategy; we ought to engage in what we think is right for the country,” McConnell said. “I’d be the last one to suggest that absolutely everything the administration does is incorrect. When we think that they’re on the right path, they’ll find Republican support.” But McConnell seems to sense that keeping his party united against controversial elements of the Democratic agenda could be his key to success this year — even if the political dynamic shifts in the next nine months. “Would I love to have the election tomorrow? I sure would,” McConnell said. “Early signs are that this could be a good year, but we have a long way to go.”