The Senate's New Mr. Conservative
BARNES, FRED
The Senate's New Mr. Conservative Mitch McConnell loses on campaign finance, but gains influence. BY FRED BARNES THIS IS A MOMENT OF DEFEAT for Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. But...
...I enjoy their ire," he says...
...Also, McConnell has stacked the Federal Election Commission with anti-reform Republicans...
...But he won, 52 percent to 48 percent, and came away convinced that fighting campaign finance reform is risk-free...
...In fact, McConnell says he takes "perverse pleasure" in alienating the media on campaign finance reform...
...He concedes campaign finance reform, which he's been fighting in one form or another for more than a decade, will soon be enacted...
...When you witness so many bad ideas gain steam, it does have a tendency to make you more conservative...
...Yet he struggles on...
...When he got to Washington, he quickly realized he knew more about the subject than anyone else...
...I take more pleasure in the things we've prevented from happening" than in those which passed...
...Nonetheless, he'll become the most important conservative in the Senate in impeding liberal legislation...
...Rather than "growing" in the eyes of the Washington establishment since he was first Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...The retirement of Gramm and Helms later this year makes McConnell's role all the more significant...
...He's happy to have watered down the patients' bill of rights that cleared the Senate...
...He's now "counselor" to Senate GOP leader Trent Lott...
...McConnell's relationship with the media is mostly adversarial...
...Nor is McCon-nell the most popular Republican among his peers...
...McConnell delights in thwarting liberal legislation...
...Later this year, he's likely to win the post of Republican whip, replacing Don Nickles of oklahoma, who's term-limited in the post...
...It doesn't bother me to use parliamentary tools to stop bad things from happening," he says...
...Three, you must be willing and sometimes eager to take on unpopular causes...
...They actually didn't read the press," McConnell says...
...He's running against Larry Craig of idaho, but McConnell's allies insist he's already lined up enough votes...
...But neither is he like Helms or President Reagan in their knack for ignoring the press...
...He was warned this would hurt him politically...
...McConnell's zeal in opposing campaign finance reform has never slackened...
...I've had both an academic and practical interest in this," McConnell says...
...I read it and enjoy it, but I'm unfazed by it...
...I'm proud of my enemies," McConnell says...
...And when Democrats sought to gut antifraud provisions in the separate election reform bill last week, he and Kit Bond of Missouri organized a filibuster to counter them...
...McConnell is anything but a darling of the media...
...one, you must be a principled conservative, not just temperamentally or situationally conservative...
...In 1990, while he was running for reelection, he led a successful Senate filibuster against a reform bill...
...He doesn't accept "the notion my career should be measured by how many bills I get passed...
...When McConnell arrived in Washington after upsetting Democratic Sen...
...He attends leadership meetings and offers advice on strategy...
...McConnell is a magnet for unpopular causes—or at least causes the mainstream media dislike...
...McConnell did, only gradually...
...He's feuded with his hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, over fund-raising for the McConnell Center for Political Leadership at the University of Louisville, his alma mater, and connections his wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, has with China...
...McConnell's rise is remarkable in a number of ways...
...Even as campaign finance reform nears final passage, McConnell has collected enough senators to demand time for negotiations on small but important changes...
...He's pro-tobacco, pro-gun, pro-business, skeptical of environmental regulation and election reform...
...What distinguishes McConnell from many conservatives in Congress is his skill in patching together coalitions...
...In fact, he's not identified with any particular initiative...
...senator...
...The wall of dozens of hostile cartoons from newspapers...
...Helms, for one, soon saw McConnell as someone who would "advance in the leadership...
...Four, you must find satisfaction in blocking bad legislation, using any parliamentary tools available...
...At best, he can hold up the legislation for a few weeks, time enough, he thinks, to gain a few small concessions from its sponsors...
...McConnell's role in the Senate— indeed, inside the Republican party and among conservatives—is growing...
...I think stopping bad legislation is an important part of being a U.S...
...The 1994 bill would have instituted public financing of congressional races and put stiffer limits on independent issue ads...
...Jesse Helms of North Carolina once feared McConnell would be a tepid defender of the tobacco industry...
...You can't [block bad legislation] by yourself," he says...
...But he's hardly in agony...
...There are few things more daunting in politics," he said, "than the determined opposition of Sen...
...He wasn't viewed as a future leader...
...And five, you must have the ability to build coalitions...
...Nobody in American politics has ever won or lost an election on this issue," McConnell insists...
...McConnell says he's "always been well right of center," but he acknowledges his years in Congress have also had an effect...
...The good news is Sen...
...McConnell is expected to win reelection easily in November...
...He first delved into the subject while teaching a night course in American political parties in the mid-1970s...
...He chaired the ethics and commerce committees, ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, from 1996 to 2000, then became Lott's adviser...
...John McCain, McConnell's opponent on campaign reform, was correct in his assessment of McConnell last week...
...And not only on campaign reform...
...He's something of an acquired taste," says former senator Slade Gorton of Washington state...
...Just before the 1994 election, after reform bills had passed both houses, he put together a GOP filibuster of the resolution naming conferees to a House-Senate session to meld the two measures...
...There are basically five criteria for being an effective conservative leader in Congress, and McConnell, like DeLay, meets all five...
...And often," he says, "knowledge is power...
...As it turned out, he's ferocious in fighting the anti-tobacco lobby...
...He's known far more for what he opposes than for what he favors...
...He's not a publicity hound of any kind," says Gorton...
...McConnell says he's not as "hard-core" as Helms, and he's more selective in picking targets than Gramm...
...Two, you must be unaffected by sharply critical press coverage, even oblivious to it...
...sure, the media will again denounce McConnell...
...The bill President Bush will sign is far less comprehensive and is studded with loopholes...
...Even in defeat this year, McConnell gets credit for warding off a far more sweeping version of campaign finance reform...
...He overcame the opposition of President Clinton and Senate Democrats to win an FEC seat for the brightest intellectual foe of campaign reform, a young Harvard Law School graduate named Bradley Smith...
...I wouldn't trade them for anything...
...Dee Huddleston, he was largely an unknown quantity to conservatives...
...If so, he'll give Senate Republicans a second-in-command who's as combative and relentless as House GoP whip Tom DeLay...
...He lacked the votes to obstruct the bill...
...He's proud to have joined Phil Gramm of Texas in defeating President Clinton's health care plan in 1994...
...This, of course, is empowering, allowing him to take strong conservative positions without fretting about press coverage...
...elected in 1984—which means drifting to the left—McConnell has become more conservative...
...It worked, the bills died, and several weeks later Republicans won their most sweeping victory in congressional elections in the second half of the twentieth century...
...You have to inspire the loyalty of others...
...once the measure is signed by President Bush, he promises to be plaintiff number one in a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality...
...His signature issue is campaign restrictions, contesting them...
Vol. 7 • March 2002 • No. 25
