Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) may not be very popular back in his home state of Kentucky but he's got a big supporter in New York City:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently visited Donald Trump at his office, the celebrity real estate mogul told National Review. It was the first time the two men have met.
“I think he’s a terrific guy, and I support him fully,” Trump said. “I think he’s going to do fine.”
McConnell (R-Ky.) could face challenges from both right and left in 2014, but he has a huge war chest and has already begun campaigning aggressively. - Washington Post, 6/3/13
Why did the Turtle Man go and meet with The Donald? Who knows but the National Review is trying to hype the idea of a Trump Presidential candidacy in 2016:
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
Michael Cohen, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, says the current Republican 2016 contenders have yet to impress Trump Tower. “He wouldn’t be unhappy if somebody great would just surface and help to rebuild America,” says Cohen. “He would be ecstatic. But that person’s not there, not in our current White House, and not in the cast of characters that appear to be the potential Republican nominees, and this is of concern to him.”
Trump adds that his work puts him at a disadvantage compared with other potential contenders. “It’s much more difficult for somebody like me to run than some politicians where all they do is run for office,” he says.
But the deck isn’t stacked entirely against him, he says. When I ask him if he is courting Republican leaders to lay groundwork for a campaign, he responds in the negative. “I don’t need funds,” he says. “I don’t need to raise money, like a lot of people, so that’s a big advantage if I decide to do something.”
But that’s not to say his life has been devoid of GOP politicos as of late. Two weeks ago, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) visited Trump’s office. It was the first time the two had met, Trump says. “I think he’s a terrific guy, and I support him fully,” he says. “I think he’s going to do fine. A lot of people are going to have tough elections. I think Mitch is going to come out great.”
Trump also is a strong supporter of Speaker John Boehner. “I know John Boehner very well, and I like John Boehner a lot. I think he’s got a very, very tough job, because he’s got factions within his own party that are pretty diametrically opposed to each other, but I think he’s got the right temperament, and I think he’s a terrific guy. He’s got to hold things together, and he’s been doing that.”
For now, though, Trump is keeping Republican insiders at arm’s length for the most part while he pays attention to data about his electoral prospects. “The candidates all want to see me,” he says. “I don’t go out of my way. Whatever it is, it is — I sort of view it that way.” He also tells me that all the potential 2016 contenders have sought his support because of his popularity with the American people. And he says Mitt Romney missed an opportunity by failing to capitalize on that popularity in 2012. - National Review, 6/3/13
Sounds like Trump and McConnell are kissing each other's asses so they can rely on each other's support in the future. Meanwhile, we might be finding out early next month if Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) will take on McConnell:
http://www.courier-journal.com/...
McConnell will try to stick the Obama label on any Democrat. That’s his trump card to the Democratic line that he is the greatest example of what’s wrong with Washington. His implicit counter-argument is, “You may not like me that much, but you really don’t like HIM, do you? He’s who I’m obstructing.”
Grimes voted for the president as a convention delegate, so his scandals may have given her pause. Other speculation says she’s delaying a candidacy announcement until July 1 or later, so she wouldn’t have to file a quarterly campaign-finance report showing little or no money on June 30 and suffer from comparison to McConnell’s millions. “I think that’s nonsense,” Rep. John Yarmuth (D. KY-3) said. “I don’t think anybody cares about that stuff.”
The best reason for Grimes’ lack of an announcement would be that she is taking proper time to study the multitude of issues, many of them complex, that confront the Senate and candidates for it. She’s a lawyer who understands the need for careful preparation, and she probably realizes that one of her supposed advantages — lack of previous positions on issues — would eventually evaporate as she is asked about them and McConnell’s misleading-message machine turns a supposedly innocuous word or phrase into attacks that could define her before she has a chance to define herself.
And what if Grimes decides not to run? The list of Democratic alternatives has expanded in recent weeks, beyond environmental attorney Tom FitzGerald, to include Miss America 2000 Heather French Henry, a veterans’ advocate and the wife of former Lt. Gov. Steve Henry; and Lexington lawyer Bill Garmer, state Democratic chairman in 2004. (Ed Marksberry of Owensboro and Bennie J. Smith of Louisville have said they’re running, but have little or no money and name recognition.) - Louisville Courier-Journal, 6/1/13
By the way, I'm sorry to refer to right-wing magazines like National Review but I just read Curtis Morrison's interview with the Daily Caller and it's pretty interesting. Morrison is the activist who secretly recorded McConnell's conversation with his campaign team and he has no regrets about doing it:
http://dailycaller.com/...
TheDC: You also wrote that “given another chance to record him, I’d do it again.” But was the juice really worth the squeeze? Liberals didn’t like to hear Ashley Judd’s memoir being discussed by McConnell’s team, but it seems to me to just be a routine campaign meeting. What was it that McConnell said that you are willing to risk going to jail for in order for the public to know?
Morrison: I’ve helped to launch a congressional campaign, Senate campaign, and mayoral campaign, as well as worked for a progressive super PAC, and I’ve never, ever, been privy to a room full of people laughing uncontrollably over a woman’s personal struggles with depression.
Nor have I been privy to a campaign considering the use of an opponent’s religious beliefs to pit people of faith against each other.
In the recording, when they found out Judd related to Saint Francis, who was Catholic and often called the “patron saint of animals,” they revel with uncontrolled laughter, plotting how to use that detail to drive Louisville’s Southeast Christian Church to the streets with “pitchforks and torches.”
I have a lot of friends who are Catholic, and I have a lot of friends who go to Southeast Christian, and all of them deserve better from their senator.
But here’s the real kicker, I am not convinced the consequences of the recording have been realized for McConnell’s campaign. A few reporters have told me when they ask McConnell’s campaign manager who it was I recorded in that room, they hear crickets on the other end of the line.
I’m not an expert in federal campaign finance law, but I do know that super PACs and candidate campaigns can’t sit around in secret meetings hashing out strategies on how to spend campaign dollars, nor am I making allegations that is what happened. However, I am curious to know whether anyone from Karl Rove’s super PAC was in that room, so if I’m indicted, at least we’ll finally find that out. - Daily Caller, 6/2/13
We shall see indeed.