Mitch McConnell is perhaps the most important conservative politician of the post-Reagan era. Both George W. Bush and now Donald Trump have been reelected president as Republicans, but McConnell has wielded power for far longer than eight years in office. McConnell has arguably had more influence on the success and the future of conservatism, particularly in the judiciary, than anyone this century.
Michael Tackett’s new biography of McConnell, The Price of Power, is an important contribution to understanding our political landscape and recognizing McConnell’s vast talents. This is so even though Tackett is not a political fan of his subject. The book praises McConnell reluctantly, which makes the survey of his impact even more impressive. Tackett disapproves of how McConnell has helped reshape the Supreme Court, fill the judiciary, get Republican senators elected, reduce taxes, and combat efforts to have government impose more rules on campaign financing. Nevertheless, Tackett writes, McConnell "is a master of talent, scouting, and opportunism, of planning and execution, in the business of politics, where winning is the measure of success."
The book begins with McConnell’s childhood, defined to a large degree by his bout with polio and his mother’s determination not to let this affliction hold him back. This childhood disease would have large implications throughout McConnell’s life, from the way it shaped his youth to the periodic stumbles the senator’s staff tends to attribute to "polio leg."
McConnell took an early interest in politics. He got a radio as a gift at age 10 and used it to follow politics. He wore an "I like Ike" button to school for picture day. He continued supporting Republicans throughout his young life, with the one exception of backing Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964, largely over Goldwater’s opposition to civil rights legislation. McConnell moved to Washington and served as a congressional staffer in the 1960s, where he met numerous people who would be important to him in later life, including fellow future senator Lamar Alexander. Returning to Kentucky, McConnell sought a career in politics, which was not that easy as a Republican in the 1970s and ’80s. But McConnell applied the strategic sense that has served him well throughout his career to each one of his races, planning for each one well ahead of time and making keen assessments of his opponents’ strengths and weaknesses.
McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984, upsetting the incumbent Walter Dee Huddleston. He was so unknown that when President Ronald Reagan came to speak on his behalf, Reagan referred to the young politico as "Mitch O’Donnell." In the Senate, unlike most of his other colleagues, McConnell had little interest in national office, but instead set his sights on leadership. Leveraging his keen interest in politics, he ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 1997 to 2001. He entered Senate leadership in the 108th Congress, in 2003, and has been in there ever since, a remarkable—and unusually long—run. McConnell also married extremely well: His wife, Elaine Chao, is a Harvard MBA and former cabinet secretary of two departments.
There is another way in which McConnell distinguished himself from his Senate colleagues. As Tackett writes, "Most senators cannot stop talking. McConnell is known for his inexhaustible capacity to listen." In a group of show horses, McConnell was a workhorse. Where most senators love to be on TV, McConnell only granted media interviews when he thought they might be helpful to him and his political or policy goals. This means that the media—and his opponents—do not always understand the real McConnell. On this point, Tackett notes that McConnell is depicted as "humorless," when in reality, "He has a strong, dry, sense of humor."
McConnell also differed from others in politics by having a thick skin. On this, Tackett quotes CNN’s Scott Jennings, one of multiple talented McConnell aides who, having learned from the master, went on to other prominent roles in the political world. According to Jennings, McConnell always kept his emotions in check: "I think people have never been able to understand his ability to divorce political decision-making from emotional overreaction. … He does not get bogged down in grudges, tweets, insults, haymakers. He just has this uncanny ability to remove negative emotions from strategic decision-making."
The Jennings insight points to Tackett’s method. While this is not an "authorized" biography, in which the subject gets to approve the final text, McConnell did cooperate in opening up his own diaries and allowing his colleagues and former staff to speak to Tackett. In addition to Jennings, those ex-staffers include Josh Holmes, now of the Ruthless podcast, and Steven Law of the Senate Leadership Fund. These former staffers not only help provide insight into the McConnell method, but they also reveal McConnell’s skill in finding, assessing, and keeping top talent. This skill helped McConnell stay in power as long as he has, outlasting three Republican House speakers since McConnell ascended to be the leader of the Senate Republicans. Tackett observes, "McConnell, never seen as a purely ideological figure, managed to keep his perch the way he always had: dispassionately, assessing strengths and weaknesses, and fastening a path to retain his position."
McConnell cooperated with the biography in another way as well. As Tackett writes in the acknowledgments, McConnell "sat for more than 50 hours of interviews and granted access to sensitive oral histories well before he had initially planned to do so, and certainly not to his political benefit." Tackett reveals a lot in this statement. He may have gone into this project intending to damage the senator’s historical reputation, but it’s hard to read The Price of Power without becoming even more impressed with the skills, talents, and accomplishments of Addison Mitchell McConnell III.
The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party
by Michael Tackett
Simon & Schuster, 416 pp., $32.50
Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute and a former senior White House aide. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Titans of Industry and Commanders in Chief.
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