Barrett Rainey's Second Thoughts

November 4, 2010. Office of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), GOP Minority Leader. He’s meeting with two of the national election victors.

McC: I want to welcome you both, Sen. Angell and Sen. Paul and to explain some of the rules of the body to you.

Paul: Well, Sir, we really don’t need the explanation. We’re here to take care of the matters we were elected to … take care of.

Angell: Things like getting rid of the Department of Education, OSHA, EPA, the fed. We want to get started first with returning the country to the gold standard.

McC: Well, we’ve got some issues here already which we’re trying to bring to a close. Ballooning national debt, immigration reform, putting some tax cuts in place.

Paul: Those things aren’t important now. We’re here for the people’s agenda and we won’t be involved with those other things until we’re done. We want to get this constitutional amendment stuff taken care of. Stop giving away our citizenship just because you happen to be born here. And election of senators in the future should be done by state legislators who know the candidates and know who deserves it. Who’s got the money and who doesn’t. Cleaner that way. Our founding fathers knew that.

Angell: And we’ve got to find out where Barak Obama was really born and confirm his Muslim beliefs. People don’t really care about those other things now. Besides, when we get done with our agenda, those problems won’t be problems anymore. See?

Paul: We want to reopen the civil rights laws, too. Take another look. If a property owner wants to discriminate for any reason, he should have that right. Guaranteed.

McC: Well, we’ll put those ideas in the mix and address ‘em when their turn comes up.

Angell: No. No, they are too important to wait. And we’d like you to call a meeting of the entire caucus today so we can make sure everyone is going the same direction on these important matters. Several of us newcomers are going to form our own sub-caucus of right-minded individuals. We’ll be meeting regularly and we’ll let you know what has to be done.

Paul: Right. We’ll let you know if there’s anything we need you to do.

If you think that fictional conversation is too fictional, you haven’t been watching the TV commercials of these uncooked nuts, haven’t paid attention to their pronouncements in the various media and checked more of the polling. If these two aren’t elected, there are enough other strange ones out there that some are going to get past the gatekeeper.

Several years ago, there was a Super Bowl ad about herding cats. Mitch McConnell should dig that one out of the file and watch it, oh, a thousand times or two. ‘Cause I have a feeling dealing with that old Democrat majority is not going to be his biggest problem.

Adding two or three of these “constitutionalists” to the Republican mix might not be a bad idea if you’re sitting with the Democrats. Several of these folk who can’t see the tree for the forest could provide a lot of distraction for the senior senator from Kentucky. Might result in a few less always ready “no” votes in his caucus.

Compromise is unacceptable for these people. It’s not in ‘em. They are ideologues and their world is pure black and pure white. One disagreement on one issue is grounds for banishment of the offender. Even if that offender is the majority leader. I can’t think of a more sure-fire way for McConnell to lose control than to deny these folks their time in the sun. They aren’t motivated by the usual political pablum. To them, meeting halfway is for turncoats. That’s always what’s saved us from the hard right. Sooner or later, they get to a point where someone isn’t pure enough or, because of inbred paranoia, can’t be trusted anymore. Always. Always. Always.

None of this makes for good government. Nor does it foster an atmosphere wherein problems can be solved. These folks aren’t there to solve problems. They have their issues and that’s all there is for them. They will create problems.

So, following the election, we may not have any better crew on the oars of Congress. We may have to continue to slog through this economy until we can fix it without Washington.

But it might be more fun to watch.

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