Sen. Mitch McConnell measures his commitment to Kentucky workers
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spent Wednesday in Kentucky, adding his personal presence to the organization's
campaign to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes in November's election. According to WFPL's Phillip Bailey, Trumka said the race
should be a referendum on McConnell's 30 years in office:
“Of course Mitch McConnell wants this race to be about every [sic] but him and his record,” Trumka told WFPL in a one-on-one interview Wednesday.
“Mitch McConnell said what he’s going to do if he’s re-elected,” said Trumka. “He said there will never be a minimum wage increase, we won’t extend unemployment benefits, we won’t do infrastructure—‘I’ll stop all of those things.’ And that’s what he’s done.”
So how is McConnell responding to Trumka's visit? Well, his campaign refused Bailey's request for a comment ...
... but pointed to the senator’s comments earlier this year indicating he would back a wage hike under better economic circumstances.
“The last thing we need in this jobless recovery is fewer jobs, and so I think it's a really bad idea at this particular time," McConnell said in May. "There may be other situations in which raising the minimum wage is a good idea. It's not a good idea right now with the job loss that we've experienced and the high unemployment we have.”
That's vintage McConnell up-is-downism—his remarks from May weren't an expression of openness to raising the minimum wage, they were an explanation for why he is against raising it now. True, he tried to give himself some wiggle room by saying that perhaps one day raising the wage would be a good idea, but that was political hedging and doublespeak reminiscent of when he said that Obamacare repeal was unrelated to the fate of Kynect, the state's popular implementation of health care reform. And it's a perfect example of why it would be so sweet to finally send Mitch packing.