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Bill Straub: Sing it to ‘Which Side Are You On’ and call it the ballad of Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul


The gossip sheets and the tabloids are constantly filled with reports about individuals who work closely together for years but nonetheless can’t for some reason stomach being in the same room with one another.

They may have created great music but Simon and Garfunkel share a mutual and loathing disregard. The Gallagher boys, Liam and Noel, created big hits for Oasis back in the day but were always tearing at each other’s throat. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis might have been the most popular comedy team of all time yet the split up in acrimony that lasted decades.

Similar bitter relationships between politicians of the same party here in DC aren’t all that uncommon. A pair of Democratic senators from the great state of New Jersey back in the late nineties, Frank Lautenberg and Bob Torricelli, despised each other to such a degree that reports emerged that the hate turned physical on at least one occasion. On the Republican side, Sen. Susan Collins and former Sen. Olympia Snowe, both of Maine, could hardly hide their mutual animosity even though their moderate voting records were nearly identical.


The NKyTribune’s Washington columnist Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com

Which brings us to the pair who represent the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the upper chamber, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Louisville, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, who have always played nice in public but have chosen divergent paths in the way they operate, often leading to real conflict.

Both men claim they are able to put their differences aside and work together to Kentucky’s benefitted, maintaining they are actually great friends. McConnell has noted in the past that he supported Paul in his failed attempt to gain the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. And Paul has always returned the favor by endorsing McConnell’s re-election efforts.

That public comity is on display even though their personal styles are as different as Oscar Madison and Felix Unger. McConnell is the tight-lipped, parsimonious power chaser who demands a tight ship. Paul is the occasional bomb thrower – figuratively, not literally – who quickly opts for chaos if it can meet his objectives. He also appears to be about as popular among his fellow lawmakers as Sen. Red Cruz, R-TX, which speaks volumes.

Paul, it’s fair to say, has provided McConnell with as many headaches as anyone on the Republican side of the Senate. There was, for instance, the knock-down-drag-out over the extension of the Patriot Act back in 2015 when Paul, confronting not only McConnell but the GOP caucus, went the extra yard in seeking to defeat the extension, leading Mitch to warn that a failure to act could lead to future terrorist incidents.

Paul’s efforts eventually collapsed.

Some of their differences have drawn attention in just this past week. In a major policy matter, President Biden has announced he intends to withdraw all 2,500 American troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, thus drawing a close to the nation’s longest war. McConnell condemned the move as “a grave mistake’’ and “a retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished and abdication of American leadership.”

Paul, meanwhile, is the Senate most vocal critic of America’s Afghanistan venture, at one time characterizing the nation’s continued presence there as “crazy.’’ He even offered withdrawal legislation in 2020, asserting, “The cycle shows no sign of ending. The war shows no sign of ending. It is not sustainable to keep fighting in Afghanistan generation, after generation.”

McConnell opposed the measure and it failed. This go-round, Paul praised the president’s decision.

“I’m grateful President Biden is keeping President Trump’s plan to leave Afghanistan, even with a delay until fall,” Paul said. “The time to bring our troops home is now or as soon as possible. Enough endless wars.”

But the real potential dispute lies not so much on policy as on the political side.

The current Senate is split 50-50 among Republicans and Democrats who count a couple independents on their side. Democrats control since Vice President Kamala Harris presides to break any ties.

McConnell would like to change that picture by picking up additional seats in 2022. That desire is complicated by the fact that the GOP has more slots to defend – 20 as opposed to only 14 for the Democrats. Republican chances are further muddied by the announcement that five GOP incumbents don’t intend to seek re-election.

But the possibility remains because of the razor-thin Democratic margin and past history showing that the party that controls the White House – in this case the Democrats under Biden – traditionally lose seats in an off-year election. With that in mind, McConnell is avid about getting the remaining 15 GOP incumbents plenty of support and bringing them back to Washington.

Paul is not so inclined. At the so-called Save America Summit in Florida last weekend, he broached the issue of Obamacare, anathema to most Republicans and a pain in the party’s side since GOP lawmakers have proved unable to kill it dead, as the old saying goes, and called for the defeat of Republican lawmakers who voted to retain the popular health care law.

“But here’s the thing: this is our problem,” Paul said. “We know the Democrats want to have socialized medicine and nationalized health care. But Republicans say they’re for it, we got to keep them honest. And you got to send home the ones that lie to you.”

Two Republicans currently sitting in the Senate voted against repealing the law.

There’s Collins of Maine, who isn’t going anywhere since she was just re-elected in 2020, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, who is indeed seeking another term and already is facing primary opposition.

This is the sort of infighting McConnell neither wants nor needs. But it’s in keeping with the sort of scorched earth manner of politics practiced by his fellow Kentuckian.

And there’s an even more personal angle. You may have heard that McConnell and erstwhile President Donald J. Trump, the scourge of the republic, have experienced what might be kindly characterized as a falling out.

Trump remains angry that McConnell refused to travel to hell and back so he could cheat his way into a second term, having lost to Biden nationwide by 7 million votes. Trump wanted Mitch, then the majority leader, to reject the Electoral College count, opening the back door to a possible second term. McConnell wouldn’t play ball. All of that sparked an insurrection of right-wing Trump enthusiasts at the Capitol building, leading to five deaths.

McConnell denounced the riot and Trump’s noxious maneuverings. That, parlayed with the Electoral College kerfuffle, has transformed the GOP leader from a great guy to public enemy number one in the former president’s eyes.

That’s not a comfortable place, especially since Trump retains the undying support of most Republicans from sea to shining sea and he very well may seek the party’s presidential nomination once again in 2024. It has contributed to McConnell’s paltry showing in polls nationwide – his popularity stands at about 20 percent.

Trump will not let go of McConnell’s ankle. Over the weekend, speaking to high roller Republican Party contributors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the ex-president characterized McConnell as the ignorant progeny of a female dog. You could look it up. In an earlier get-together, he called his former best pal a “dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack.”
 
Things therefore aren’t exactly copacetic between Trump and McConnell. So where does Paul stand?

Well, he hasn’t exactly rushed publicly to McConnell’s defense. He has, however, accepted an endorsement for his own 2022 re-election bid – from erstwhile President Donald. J. Trump.

“Rand Paul has done a fantastic job for our Country, and for the incredible people of Kentucky,” Trump said in a statement. “He fights against the Swamp in Washington, the Radical Left Liberals, and especially the destructive RINOS, of which there are far too many, in Congress. Rand will continue to stand up for our great AMERICA FIRST policies because he believes in stopping wasteful spending, defending our Second Amendment rights, and taking care of our Military and our Vets.”

And he continues to defend Trump’s atrocious behavior in attempting to overturn the results of the November election – an outcome McConnell maintains was arrived at fair and square. During an event sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Paul insisted that Trump’s claims of election fraud were never fully considered by the nation’s courts.

“The one thing I think is untrue is that the courts fully heard this,” Paul said. “Courts have been hesitant to get involved in elections.”

What he failed to note is that the courts perhaps failed to get involved because Trump failed to show any scintilla evidence of widespread fraud that would have affected the outcome.

Regardless, despite claims of brotherhood, Paul and McConnell are traveling down two completely different tracks, with the actions of one playing havoc with the other.

Time to call in the late Pete Seeger for a rendition of “Which Side are You On.”


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