Republicans’ McConnell Seeks to Say Yes to Obama on Something

By Laura Litvan

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican in the U.S. Senate, has so far had one word for President Barack Obama’s agenda: No.

Now, with his party being battered as rejectionist, the Kentucky lawmaker says he’s looking for something he can say yes to. The Senate minority leader, who has opposed every major Obama initiative since the president took office, says he sees the opportunity for agreement in areas such as foreign policy and overhauling Social Security.

“No one wants him to fail,” McConnell, 67, said in an interview. “But saying ‘no’ to bad policy is not saying ‘no’ to everything.”

More than good fellowship may be at work. Polls show that a majority of voters like Obama’s attempts to establish bipartisan cooperation and say McConnell’s Republicans are playing politics. In a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, 56 percent said Republicans were opposing Obama to gain political advantage; just 30 percent thought they were standing on principle.

McConnell’s stated willingness to work with Obama so far hasn’t matched his actions. He voted against the president on the $787 billion economic-stimulus plan, opposed an expansion of a children’s health-care program and refused to support Obama’s nominees for Treasury secretary and attorney general.

“The Republicans are betting against the president, against an economic recovery, and therefore they’re betting against the nation,” said Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Common Ground

In the interview, McConnell said one issue he and Obama might work together on is a possible move to recast at least one of the three major entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. At a White House health-care forum last week, he told Obama an accord would be easier to reach if a bipartisan task force of lawmakers made recommendations.

They also may find common cause on foreign policy, he said. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top-ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee agreed, saying the two might be allies if the U.S. and Russia begin to forge a new nuclear arms-reduction agreement.

“He’s under pressure to ensure that Republicans don’t look purely like obstructionists, especially if the economy starts to crash,” said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University.

Filibuster Threat

The five-term senator’s authority stems from the filibuster, a delaying tactic that takes 60 Senate votes to overcome before a bill can be passed. Republicans have just enough votes -- when they stick together -- to prevail.

The limits of his reach were evident during the debate over Obama’s stimulus plan. After McConnell said he would oppose the measure, which he calls “a mind-boggling expenditure of public funds,” Obama got the support of three Republicans -- Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine -- to win passage on a compromise.

“You almost have to feel sorry for him, because he’s at the mercy of that small group of moderate Republicans who, if you assume unanimity on the Democratic side, will control a lot of these big debates,” said Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

McConnell is hardly giving up the fight. Last week, he helped force Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to delay a vote on a spending bill. And he’s persuaded Republicans to agree to filibuster any time Reid tries to block Republican amendments.

‘No to Everything’

Yesterday, hours before the Senate passed a $410 billion measure funding federal agencies this year, Reid said there’s little evidence Republicans are looking for a middle ground.

“They’re just saying no to everything,” he said.

McConnell insists that Republicans have ideas and have been showcasing them by proposing amendments on every major measure this year.

“We’ve been offering suggestions on a broad array of topics,” he said. “That’s the beginning of the way back.”

As he tries to plot that course, he draws on his own history as both partisan and compromiser.

He has used parliamentary maneuvers to block efforts to end the Iraq War. In 2002, he fought against a ban on “soft money” donations to national political parties -- championed by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona -- all the way to the Supreme Court, which narrowly upheld the law.

Attacked by Democrats

Yet last year, when then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressed for authority to establish a $700 billion bailout fund for financial firms, McConnell helped push it through the Senate. Democrats later attacked him for that in campaign ads in his home state. McConnell won re-election with 53 percent.

McConnell is a survivor. He pushed past polio as a child then chose a career in politics that goes back to a Senate internship in 1964.

Home-state concerns can bring out his pragmatic streak. While McConnell backed President George W. Bush on most policies -- and is married to Bush’s former Labor secretary, Elaine Chao -- he helped block the president’s 2007 proposal to overhaul immigration law because Kentucky voters were against it.

He gets high marks from Senate Republicans. “McConnell is voting no based on principle and philosophy,” said Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican.

To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: March 11, 2009 00:01 EDT

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