Thom Tillis Opposes Mike Lee's Plans for Senate "Power-Sharing"

What follows is so inside-DeeCee that it will likely be excruciating. So you're forewarned.

Fox News
Sen. Mike Lee on left, Thom Tillis, right

Mitch McConnell, Republican Majority Leader for eons in the U.S. Senate, and now Minority Leader, is retiring in the nick of time. He won't have to deal with poor blood flow or President Donald J. Trump (again) -- should he squeak in -- or the Freedom Caucus (if Trump goes down like a fizzled Roman candle, because the purity-of-MAGA caucus will still exist in Congress). 

So goodbye, Mitch McConnell! Republican senators in a few scant months will be picking (they hope) their next Majority Leader. Three gentlemen think they deserve it: Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. Scott seems most likely to draw the Freedom Caucus vote, but getting a majority? Not likely. Scott's a long shot (even if he survives his current reelection challenge from Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell). So some of the ultra conservative senators, led by Mike Lee of Utah, want to pass new rules for their majority, a sort of anticipatory "democratizing" of the conference so that a handful of hard-liners can stop dead any new leader’s authority in backing “Democrat priorities.” Like Mitch McConnell very occasionally did. McConnell to Mike Lee had shown signs of a dangerous moderation. In a second Trump presidency, Lee warned in a public letter a few days ago, the McConnell old establishment type Republican (of which John Thune is a prime example) “will be tempted to join Democrats to pass funding bills that tie Trump’s hands.” 

Lee and his conservative allies therefore and thereby want power sharing to make sure a moderate majority, led by a Leader willing to cut deals with Chuck Shumer, will never sell out conservatives' wildest dreams.

Thom Tillis Speaks Up

In opposition to Sen. Lee's push to "democratize" Senate leadership, arose this past week Sen. Thom Tillis of NC, who wrote his own public letter taking apart with astrounding logic the Mike Lee argument. Why make a future Leader deliberately and unnecessarily weak? Tillis wanted to know. In a war of ideas, strong, no backbiting, united action is required. Sniping from within the tribe looks weak. Is weak:

“The debate among members really boils down to whether you favor a weak or strong leader model. Mike has laid out proposals that would substantially weaken the Republican leader and further empower Schumer, and I believe it would be unwise to go down that path,” Tillis wrote.

“I suspect many Americans would be shocked to know that any one member can [bring action to a grinding halt] while attempting to advance an amendment that a supermajority of our conference is against.”

These appearances of Contrary Thom are becoming more frequent. They're fascinating grist for any mill processing his future in a Party defined by obeisance to a dictator. And I see the irony of praising Tillis for standing up to Mike Lee's brand of rump tyranny, whilst simultanously advocating for Leadership tyranny. One man's tyrant is another man's bunkmate.

How To Win By Losing

 

Kate Compton Bar, the NC Senate candidate in Dist. 37 whose slogan "Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Win" has attracted national attention (and a post on this site), was the subject of an NBC Meet the Press segment, which can be viewed here. 

The Meet the Press segment gets into the whole national disgrace of gerrymandering, especially as it's been practiced in North Carolina.

P.S.

Gerrymandering like this shite, pulling Wilmington Black voters out of Senate Dist. 7 (New Hanover) and adding them to the rural whites in Senate Dist. 8 (Brunswick and Columbus), so that incumbent Republican Senator Mike Lee has a better shot at reelection. A national disgrace.

Butch and Sundance Take a Powder

Republican senators Jerry Moran (Kansas) and Mike Lee (Utah) held hands last night and jumped together, announcing they wouldn't support the Republican health insurance bill, thus killing the thing doornail-dead. They made their announcements in tandem, according to Thomas Kaplan, so that neither one of them could be fingered as "the definitive vote" that killed the Obamacare repeal and replace initiative.

Brave souls!

Now Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he'll call for a vote on repealing without a replacement either in mind or in place, which sounds like a super-duper, double-scoop of wonderful to us. Go for it, Mitch! Let's watch that play out.

Republicans: This Is Your Brain on Tea

Utah tea partier Mike Lee came in only second in the balloting in Utah yesterday that threw out incumbent Senator Robert Bennett, but it was the tea partiers who provided the umph to oust Bennett.

Lee is a lawyer who clerked for Justice Samuel Alito. He's a free marketeer who thinks the economic crisis can be fixed by removing regs on banks and other corporations. He wants the tax burden shifted onto the shoulders of the middle and poorer classes of people through the "flat tax," which will teach 'em a goood lesson about the costs of the social safety net, once they start paying more taxes. He's a "drill, baby, drill" sorta politician who thinks government has no right to tell anybody anything, except when it comes to abortion, and then he's all for government's taking charge of women's lives. He was endorsed by Sen. Jim DeMint, patron saint of tea partiers everywhere.

"That the tea party would consider Bob Bennett, one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, too liberal, just goes to show how extreme that tea party is," Democratic National Chair Tim Kaine said. "If there was any question before, there should now be no doubt that the Republican leadership has handed the reins to the tea party."

The man who finished first in the convention balloting, businessman Tim Bridgewater, will be forced into a June 22nd primary against Lee, whom he beat in convention delegates 57-43 percent. Smart money is on Bridgewater. Mad money is on Lee.

Coming in second seems to be the pattern with some tea party candidates elsewhere, though they're sucking a lot more air out of the Republican closet than their numbers would seem to justify. In the NC-11, for example, the tea party candidate, ophthalmologist Dan Eichenbaum lost the Republican primary to Jeff Miller, a Hendersonville dry-cleaner. Eichenbaum got 34 percent of the vote last Tuesday but fell short of forcing a run-off with Miller, who will now be on the ballot facing Heath Shuler in November.