How Do You Soften the Image of a Stone-cold Liar Like Senator McConnell?

Alan Rappeport published an article titled McConnell Softens Image in the Homestretch.

My question, after thirty years of living with him as my senator, was: how do you soften a stone-cold, heartless, liar who should have been a one-term senator? Of course, I was curious enough to read the article. 

Usually, I consider it my civic duty to dissect Senator McConnell’s words for his supporters since they willingly relinquished critical thinking skills years ago. This time, I am gong to dissect Alan Rappeport’s words about Senator McConnell. 

The rhetorical gunfight in Kentucky’s Senate race seems to have been holstered, for the moment.

Nice. Sadly, Alison Grimes set herself up to be the butt of this joke with her ridiculous ad in which she uses a gun to shoot the enthusiasm out of this supporter. It’s very hard to keep the momentum going when I have to apologize for my candidate’s position, or for what I consider a dangerous decision. I hate guns, the NRA, and most people who support them. However, even though this would have been a game changer for me in the primary, she is still the much better choice. So much so that I don’t even have to consider this voting for the lesser of two evils. 

With midterm elections a little more than a month away, Senator Mitch McConnell is going positive.

Not quite true, Mr. Rappeport. Senator McConnell is putting out ads that might appear positive to you. The truth is, they are packed with lies. You would know this if you had checked his record. And there is nothing positive about lies. 

A new one-minute ad features how a grandfatherly Mr. McConnell, the Republican facing the Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes, helped to retrieve a young girl who had been abducted by her father and taken to Mali.

Picking nits here but this is one kinda-sorta-positive ad. That doesn't qualify going positive in my book. 

Grandfatherly is a strange way to see him. Have you ever tried to Google information about his actual grandchildren? If so, you probably ended up on my blog, and left disappointed. Grounds for Divorce   and On Behalf of My Grandchildren,Senator McConnell, I Share My Pain With You are two of the most popular entries on my McConnell blog and, sadly for those Googling to find out about his family, neither has anything to do with his divorce or grandchildren. If there is anything out there about his daughters or their children, I haven’t seen it. If they have ever stood on the stage to support him, I missed it. If they acknowledge him, it will be a surprise to me. 

There’s a young man in my community who says he was once an officer in a local young Republican group. He was excited to see Senator McConnell on an airplane and approached to introduce himself as an officer of the group. Senator McConnell didn’t bother to look up from his newspaper. So, anyone who has done their homework knows there is nothing warm and fuzzy or grandfatherly about Senator McConnell. He doesn’t even appear sincere in the photo-ops that are supposed to make him seem like a nice guy.

 

The girl’s mother, Noelle Hunter, said that Mr. McConnell worked with the State Department and the government of Mali to secure her daughter’s safety.

It was his job to do that. Any examples where he helped people when it wasn’t his job? 

“He cared about me and my children when other people didn’t,” Ms. Hunter said, recalling that Mr. McConnell even met them at the airport upon her daughter’s return. “Mitch never stopped fighting for us.”

I’m very happy for Ms. Hunter and her family. This is a wonderful story. But, I don’t believe, and I doubt anyone else believes, that other people didn’t care. The difference might be that Senator McConnell was in a position to pick up a phone and direct others to get this done. I would have done the same in that position as I’m sure most people reading this would have. Alison Grimes will do the same. The fact that a senator did this is not unusual. What matters here is that Senator McConnell has proven, repeatedly, that he cares very little about his constituents, about veterans nationwide, about unemployed and underemployed nationwide, about the middle class nationwide, about poverty nationwide, about education nationwide . . .   

The upbeat ad, which makes no mention of Ms. Grimes, follows a summer of sparring between the candidates on everything from President Obama’s health law to how to hold a gun.

Senator McConnell has made no mention of Secretary Grimes ever. He habitually lets his POTUS envy show by only talking about President Obama, as though he is running against him. He is an embarrassment when he says that Secretary Grimes will be a rubber stamp for President Obama, since President Obama will only be in office two of the six years of her first term, and especially since he was a rubber stamp for George Bush. 

Mr. McConnell’s poll numbers appear to have stabilized in recent weeks, and the Senate minority leader looks ready to show his softer side.

Sure. If you call circling the drain stable. He’s ready to show off, though. I’ll give Mr. Rappeport that much.