Miss McConnell Fears His Chance For Becoming Senate Majority Leader Slipping Away Because Of Paul Ryan

Miss McConnell is well aware that even if President Obama is reelected and the House switches back into the Democratic column, both of which are probable, the numbers favor him becoming Senate Majority Leader. Democrats are on the defense (23 seats, while the GOP only has 10 to defend) and Republicans up for reelection are in solidly red states or, as in the cases of Olympia Snowe (ME) and Scott Brown (MA), are highly favored. Shaky Republican incumbents are far more likely to lose to teabbager insurgents in primaries than to Democrats in generals. McConnell is now willing to do almost anything to prevent his caucus from having to take a vote of Paul Ryan's budget/cause that the public detests as a ploy to take away their Medicare and is what has made it probable that the Republicans will lose the House. Yesterday, The Hill pointed to a deep rift inside the GOP, but the rift isn't only between Senate Republicans and House Republicans. It's between career politicians who want to keep their jobs in both Houses and ideologues who are ready to embrace political martyrdom to set up a dark Ayn Rand dystopia in the United States. Miss McConnell isn't interested in Ayn Rand and is willing to give Harry Reid some promises in exchange for him not forcing the Senate to vote on Ryan's insane, incoherent budget.

Even Boehner, another careerist hack, is sober enough and in touch with enough reality to have signaled that House Republicans "won’t seek to pass the specific Medicare provisions through the House because they have little chance of being enacted by Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate." If there was a graceful way to take back the Ryan budget vote he'd do that too; there isn't.
Yesterday Club for Growth's Pat Toomey introduced a version of Ryan's budget without the killing Medicare parts.

Without the cover of Toomey’s plan, many Senate Republicans would feel forced to vote for Ryan’s plan to fend off criticism from the right. Senate Democratic leadership aides say they will seek a vote on Ryan’s plan later this month in a roll call that will trigger at least a few GOP defections.

“I’d be surprised if they want to put their members on the record as supporting that budget,” a Senate Democratic leadership aide said of Senate GOP leaders. “It’s a classic bit of overreaching by the House Republicans, where they wildly misinterpreted what the House wants.”

...The rift among Republicans on Medicare reform became more apparent last week when House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said he would not move Ryan’s proposal for establishing a premium support system through his panel.
It also appears that Republicans will not demand major Medicare concessions as part of the debt-ceiling negotiations.

“There are still too many unanswered questions with regard to Medicare reform, and I simply won’t support any plan until I know for a fact that Montana’s seniors will be protected,” Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) said of Ryan’s plan last month.

Rehberg, who was one of only four House Republicans to vote against the proposal, will run against Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) next year.

Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) was the first Senate Republican to voice her opposition to Ryan’s plan last month.

Several other Senate Republicans have since indicated that they don't want anything to do with Ryan's unpopular attack on Medicare but extremists are undeterred. Chad Connelly, the newly elected chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, for example, warned presidential hopefuls that unless they embraced Ryan's budget they'd lose the Republican primary in his state. That would eliminate all the conservative candidates and leave the GOP with a deranged gaggle of neo-fascists like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum. Even DeMint is skeptical and worries that Ryan's over reach will kill the GOP politically. Santorum said his only beef with Ryan's budget is that it doesn't do away with Medicare fast enough. You think Republican candidates for Congress want to run on a ticket headed by him? Some do, including all 3 reactionary Florida Republicans interested in running for Nelson's Senate seat next year.