“The White House has forbidden Biden from doing any deals,” Sabato said.īut beyond that, Ellis, Sabato and others say McConnell doesn’t want to take the lead in reaching an agreement because working out a deal could be viewed as weakness by Republican primary voters. Sabato also said McConnell doesn’t have much room to take a leadership role in cutting a deal because the Senate Democrats and Obama have ruled out any compromise that involves the Affordable Care Act, and because he doesn’t have access to Vice President Joe Biden, with whom he has worked well in the past. “The Democrats are running the Senate, and the Republicans are pretty much cut out of it there,” Sabato said. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics agreed that the GOP’s minority status in the Senate - without the threat of filibuster now that the cloture vote was taken - makes McConnell an afterthought. “No matter who is in his seat right now, he would not be a primary player in this,” Ellis said of McConnell. And with debate on the issue closed, Reid has free rein to bring up votes on the issue and the GOP has no way to stop him. The cloture vote shut down debate on the resolution and blocked Republicans from filibustering it. Steve Ellis, vice president of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, said McConnell lost virtually all of his power in the matter when he and other Senate leaders allowed a cloture vote on the continuing budget resolution that would have allowed government to continue spending when the new fiscal year began Oct. So far, they have both chosen the latter,” he wrote. “There is no secret ballot, and McConnell, like House Speaker John Boehner, must choose between the good of the country and keeping his job. In a Washington Post column Tuesday titled “Mitch McConnell’s vanishing act,” Dana Milbank says “one person deserves more culpability” for the shutdown than anyone else: Bevin, McConnell’s primary opponent, who has tea party backing. Political observers say that McConnell either can’t do much at this point or doesn’t want to, lest he look interested in compromise - a potential kiss of death for his re-election hopes with tea party Republicans. That legislation, however, was dead on arrival. McConnell, in the hours before the government shutdown took effect, proposed legislation to continue spending for a week to give both sides time to compromise. Senate Majority Leader Reid, however, contends that Democrats did negotiate a budget resolution with Boehner earlier this year but that the House leader reneged under pressure from members of the GOP’s tea party wing, who didn’t like that the deal didn’t touch Obamacare. We invite Senate Democrat leaders to join us,” McConnell said. Republicans are ready and willing to negotiate. “There’s a time for politics, and there’s a time for sitting down like adults and working things out. On Tuesday, McConnell took the Senate floor to complain that the Senate Democrats won’t negotiate, echoing the stance of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. McConnell’s office disputes any suggestion that he is avoiding the issues, noting that the senator has spoken repeatedly about the standoff and took part in a White House meeting between President Barack Obama and legislative leaders last week. “He will weigh in eventually - once he figures out which way the wind is blowing and the battle is over.” “He leaves the heavy lifting to the true conservatives like Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul,” said Bevin’s spokeswoman, Sarah Durand. Matt Bevin, who is challenging McConnell in the Republican primary, has criticized McConnell’s leadership on issues ranging from the shutdown to Obamacare to immigration. Jim Demint, ForAmerica, another conservative political action group and The Madison Project, which helped Cruz get elected -have criticized McConnell for not doing enough in support of their government shutdown strategy. On the flip side of that flap, representatives of other GOP groups - the Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee formed by former U.S. Coburn had refused to comment to The Hill, and his spokesman, John Hart, didn’t return Courier-Journal phone calls and emails seeking comment. McConnell spokesman Robert Steurer directed inquiries about the alleged discussion to Coburn.
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