And now another example of just how toxic U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R. KY) has become for GOP candidates:
Missouri Attorney Gen. Josh Hawley, Republicans’ top recruit to challenge Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, won’t commit to voting for Mitch McConnell as Senate Republican leader if elected in 2018.
Hawley’s campaign spokesman, Scott Paradise, was asked directly whether his boss would support McConnell. Paradise deflected the question.
“The Senate is broken and failing the people of Missouri,” he said in an email.
“Josh is running because he is not willing to tolerate the failure of the D.C. establishment any longer,” Paradise said. “He won’t tolerate Claire McCaskill’s failure. And he won’t tolerate Republican failure, either.”
Paradise’s statement did not mention McConnell by name. The spokesman did not respond to a follow-up question about how Hawley defines D.C. establishment, and whether he considers McConnell part of it.
And if you need proof that McConnell is toxic, here you go:
A collection of conservative political groups released a letter Wednesday calling for Senate Leader Mitch McConnell to step down, saying the leader has been a "failure" during the Trump presidency.
"It’s time for new leadership. Mitch McConnell has been a failure in the Senate and has cost Republicans almost a year of victories," said Adam Brandon, president of the group FreedomWorks. "He has demonstrated that he either does not understand the frustration coming from conservatives and the urgency of passing key legislation – or he does not care."
The letter, signed by Brandon and the leaders of conservative groups including the Senate Conservatives Fund and Tea Party Patriots, took particular umbrage with the Senate's failure to pass a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
"We are now in October of 2017," the letter said. "The Republicans control the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. The GOP controls it all, thanks to that commitment. President Trump and the House of Representatives have done their part. You sank it all."
A senior Republican aide dismissed the calls from conservative groups and noted that this is not the first time these groups have called for McConnell's head.
"These groups are paid to attack Republicans, and they say the same thing year after year," the aide said.
The right flank of the party has long expressed misgivings with McConnell's leadership.
Rep. Mark Walker, the head of the conservative-leaning Republican Study Group in the House, said the party would be "better off" without McConnell leading the Senate.
That’s because Hawley would rather have this clown’s backing:
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley is courting former White House strategist Steve Bannon as he moves forward with his bid to challenge U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, according to sources close to both men.
Hawley is the top Republican recruit considering a run against McCaskill, a Democrat, in 2018.
Hawley and Bannon spoke after the Breitbart executive played a role in helping controversial candidate Roy Moore win the Alabama primary for Senate last month. Moore’s decisive defeat of incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, who had been backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, drove speculation that Bannon could wade into other Republican primaries, including in Missouri.
Hawley and Bannon spoke on the phone last week for an “introductory conversation” about “who he is, his vision,” according to a Missouri Republican who is close to Hawley. A source close to Bannon confirmed that account of the call.
Of course, Hawley isn’t the only GOP candidate courting Bannon’s backing. State Auditor Matt Rosendale (R. MT) is also a Bannon-approved candidate to take on U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D. MT). But even McConnell’s own people admitted that Hawley was his number one recruit:
The question is what it means for Bannon’s insurgency. The overlap between the “establishment-backed” candidates and those Bannon is elevating in hopes of taking down the establishment has some accusing him of being more interested in a one-man show than his “season of war against a GOP establishment.”
“It’s all fantasy,” Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to McConnell, said in an interview. “There’s no ideological similarity, or background to the recruits that he’s endorsed. All it shows is that Steve Bannon is for Steve Bannon.”
It’s not a question raised just in Montana. In Missouri, Bannon is very interested in State Attorney General Josh Hawley, who was recruited by none other than McConnell to run in the first place. “He was our No. 1 recruit of the cycle,” Holmes said. “We worked our tail off to recruit Josh Hawley.”
Which makes sense why McCaskill immediately attached Hawley to McConnell:
Speaking to reporters outside the event in Independence, McCaskill blasted Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley (R) and congratulated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for getting "his candidate" into the race.
“I want to congratulate Mitch McConnell,” McCaskill said. “He got his candidate. Mitch McConnell worked very hard. I believe Josh Hawley has spent more time talking to the insiders in Washington in the last four months than he has Missourians. He’s got a lot of questions to answer.”
McCaskill added that Hawley hasn't even told reporters "where he lives," an allusion to news reports that found the attorney general living about 29 miles north of Missouri's capital, Jefferson City. State law requires the attorney general to "reside at the seat of government and keep his office in the Supreme Court building.”
“As you just witnessed, I’ve now for 44 hours answered any question any Missourians wanted to ask of me in places that are bright red,” McCaskill, considered one of 2018's most vulnerable Democratic senators, told reporters.
“Meanwhile, he hasn’t answered any questions. He won’t answer whether he’s for repeal or replace. He won’t answer questions about [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals]. He won’t even tell us really, frankly, where he lives. He didn’t tell us the truth about when he was running for the Senate.”
And by the way, Hawley is as establishment as he can be because former Missouri GOP chairmen, John Hancock, think Hawley is a liar about his own candidacy. Here’s Hancock’s testimony interview with Missouri Democratic Party spokesman, Mike Kelley:
MIKE KELLEY: Of course, Josh Hawley, then Attorney General here, from the state of Missouri. Got elected what nine months ago, ten months ago saying he wasn’t a ladder climber. He wasn’t a traditional Republican. He was an outsider. He wasn’t going to go to the next office and here we are 10 months into his service, he wants to now take on Claire McCaskill for the United States Senate. He was being pushed by the institutional Republican—the quintessential institutional Republican—and senator, John Danforth, who also had some harsh things to say about Steve Bannon.
JOHN HANCOCK: Yeah.
KELLEY: And then it comes out this week that Steve Bannon has blessed Josh Hawley as his candidate.
HANCOCK: Yeah.
KELLEY: So this guy’s lying to somebody. Hawley is lying to either Senator Danforth or he’s lying to Steve Bannon. I mean what the — if you look at it from a political science, they’re polar opposites. I mean how is he navigating this tight rope between these two.
HANCOCK: Well it’s fascinating, you know. Danforth came out and said—before Bannon endorsed Hawley—Danforth came out and said that he would hope that Hawley would have nothing to do with Steve Bannon. And well, that wish went unmet. And Hawley clearly went out and proactively courted Steve Bannon…It’s going to be interesting to me, you know, Hawley’s brand for Attorney General state office is his first time ever running for office. You don’t take positions on national issues when you’re running for state attorney general. So there’s a whole host of things now—uh, trade policy. Where does Josh Hawley stand on NAFTA? Is he a free trader? Is he an economic nationalist that wants to impose tariffs and trade barriers? That remains to be seen.
KELLEY: Yeah, but we’ve seen the big institutional Republican donors that exist here in Missouri, led by Sam Fox and Senator Danforth, who were pushing Josh Hawley as their candidate. So then Steve Bannon who would be the polar opposite— and I think I heard a couple of interviews from Senator Danforth since then—and Senator says, “No, no, no, Josh Hawley doesn’t believe Steve Bannon and that thought process, this populist message.” Well he must have said that he did to Steve Bannon. Who’s he lying to? And I don’t think this ends well for Josh Hawley. I mean, eventually you’re either going to have two more prominent Republicans in the state of Missouri come out against … Josh Hawley. Or you’re going to have Steve Bannon take out after him because their belief systems are opposing each other.
This is still going to be a tight race to watch but McCaskill is getting some help from her colleagues for next year:
U.S. Senator Al Franken, D-Minnesota, will be in Missouri next month to help the state’s Democratic Party. He will be the keynote speaker at the party’s annual Truman dinner fundraiser in St. Louis.
Franken, a former writer and performer on Saturday Night Live, also touts Missouri U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is seeking re-election next year.
“Claire McCaskill is a very good Senator and a very good politician, actually,” Franken tells Minnesota News Network. “I think she knows her state really well.”
Franken says Democrats are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work in hopes of having a successful mid-term election.
“We’re elected by our state. I represent Minnesota. That’s who elects me and that’s who I represent,” says Franken. “Claire represents Missouri and I have a lot of faith in her.”
McCaskill has more than $7.1 million in campaign funds. Republican Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is considered her leading opponent, has about $700,000 in his campaign account.
But let’s not wait until then. Click here to donate and get involved with McCaskill’s re-election campaign.