A strategically disagreeing U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) says that Mitch McConnell is making a mistake by “trash talking” GOP general-election candidates who are mainly from the MAGA contingent.
Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) recently lamented “candidate quality” and, as such, suggested that it is more likely that the House, rather than the Senate, flips back to Republican control in the November elections.
The subtext of McConnell’s defeatist remarks is that he is apparently more comfortable with establishment or RINO candidates rather than “less electable” America First/MAGA nominees.
As one of the many media outlets typically quick to exploit perceived divisions within the GOP, Politico sought out Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, for comment.
“Sen. McConnell and I clearly have a strategic disagreement here…We have great candidates, He wants to do the same thing I want to do: I want to get a majority. And I think it’s important that we’re all cheerleaders for our candidates,” he told the liberal news outlet on Thursday.
Scott is one of the key officials who recruit candidates and also decides where the top-down campaign resources go.
“If you trash talk our candidates … you hurt our chances of winning, and you hurt our candidates’ ability to raise money. I know they’re good candidates, because I’ve been talking to them and they’re working their butts off,” Sen. Scott, who is up for reelection himself in 2024, added.
‘Riddle-solver’ Chris Wallace: McConnell was ‘taking a shot at Trump’ for backing losing Senate candidates https://t.co/cReuOEcUGt
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) August 21, 2022
Former President Trump is obviously no fan of establishmentarian McConnell.
Some critics even argue that McConnell would rather lose the upper chamber than work alongside America First lawmakers in his own party in a GOP majority.
A lot of dooming is currently occurring based on publicly released polling and models with questionable methodology or perhaps what high-priced, low-success GOP consultants are whispering in McConnell’s ear.
The Democrat-compliant corporate media may also be engaging in gaslighting to try to demoralize the GOP-leaning or Trump-leaning base (which is not entirely the same) in the run-up to the November election.
Along those lines perhaps, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.), who is part of the moderate/RINO faction, told Politico that “the view on the ground can sometimes be very different than what the pundits say in Washington. I’m still optimistic that Republicans will narrowly win control. It’s certainly not a slam dunk.”
She also diplomatically praised Scott’s committee as well as McConnell’s so-called Senate Leadership Fund.
There are no guarantees whatsoever, but GOP candidates J.D. Vance and Herschel Walker, of Ohio and Georgia respectively, however, appear to be leading their Democrat rivals.
Dr. Oz and Blake Masters have time to close the gap in Pennsylvania and Arizona, respectively.
All four won contested primaries.
Even Politico admitted that “it is only September, and both parties expect races to tighten races and political spending to skyrocket,” although Democrats currently have a cash advantage.
On Monday, a somewhat more upbeat McConnell said after a fundraiser for several Senate hopefuls that Oz, in particular, “has a great shot at winning” and he has “great confidence” in the former health-and-wellness TV star.
Scott also expressed optimism about potential pickups in blue states such as Colorado, Connecticut, or Washington State, although that might be a stretch.
“Scott met with Trump earlier this week and said the former president is taking an interest in Senate races, though his deep-pocketed super PAC has not yet made a significant move to shore up the GOP’s position in key Senate battlegrounds. Scott said Trump is keenly aware of what is at stake as candidates with his imprimatur, from Walker to Masters to Vance to Oz, face general election voters in two months,” Politico added.
He also claimed that the extraordinary FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home has “energized a lot of people.”
In a Washington Examiner op-ed published on Thursday, Sen. Scott seemed more assertive.
Unfortunately, many of the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle are now trying to stop us from winning the majority this time by trash-talking our Republican candidates…If you want to talk about the need to raise more money to promote our candidates versus the Democrats’ terrible candidates, I agree. If you want to trash-talk our candidates to help the Democrats, pipe down. That’s not what leaders do…
Ultimately, though, when you complain and lament that we have ‘bad candidates,’ what you are really saying is that you have contempt for the voters who chose them. Now we are at the heart of the matter. Much of Washington’s chattering class disrespects and secretly (or not so secretly) loathes Republican voters…Let me be clear — we will overcome the Washington naysayers and their anonymous quotes, we will beat the Democrats, and we will take control of the Senate this fall. Write it down…
Scott, who served two terms as Florida’s governor, reaffirmed that “We have great candidates with incredible backgrounds and ideas to make our country better.”
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Robert Jonathan is a staff writer for BizPac Review. He is a longtime writer/editor for news aggregation websites and has also developed content in the legal and financial publishing sectors as well as for online education. He earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, “a law school the basketball teams can be proud of.”
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