At home in Colorado, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea is predictably racing to the center after surviving a primary in which O’Dea was forced to pander to the hard right on a range of issues. Free of the need to appease the GOP base, O’Dea is trying to position himself as a “different kind of Republican” who “avoids the wedge issues” to focus on “what matters most.” The thinking is that’s a brand amenable to the benchmark Colorado unaffiliated voter in a state that has trended blue for the last several elections.
But in Washington, as Axios’ Josh Kraushaar reports, Joe O’Dea is being sold…very differently:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made a surprise appearance Tuesday night at a Capitol Hill fundraiser for Joe O’Dea, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Colorado who is pledging to compete aggressively for Democrat Michael Bennet’s seat…
“I just want to assure everybody, we’re going to be all-in in Colorado,” McConnell told the assembled crowd, according to a person who attended the event. [Pols emphasis]
Joining Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at yesterday’s fundraiser for Joe O’Dea was pretty much the who’s who of Republican Senate villainy:
Also in attendance: National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Rick Scott, Senate Republican Whip John Thune, Republican Senate conference chairman John Barrasso and former Sen. Cory Gardner, the last Republican to win a Senate race in Colorado.
We haven’t seen any photos from yesterday’s fundraiser, but an image of McConnell, National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chair Sen. Rick “Bat Boy” Scott, and the last Republican in Colorado to lose a Senate race Cory Gardner all together with O’Dea would be worth a million dollars to Democrats. It’s proof that just like with Gardner in 2014, it doesn’t matter what O’Dea says about individual issues as he attempts to reposition to the center.
What matters is that O’Dea will help Mitch McConnell take back the U.S. Senate.
O’Dea has already gone on record saying he would have voted for Donald Trump’s judicial picks, which means like Gardner O’Dea would have paved the way for the radicalized Trump Supreme Court now in the process of dismantling once-settled civil rights precedents. More than anyone in America short of perhaps Trump himself, McConnell has been responsible for the last decade of total partisan political warfare from the Republican Party that first ground Barack Obama’s presidency to a halt and then lurched right with ferocious speed under Trump.
For Democrats struggling to respond to O’Dea’s Gardner-style slipperiness on the issues, they’ve just been handed a concise and powerful argument that voters in November will understand very well.
A vote for Joe O’Dea is a vote for Mitch McConnell.
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"to lose a Senate race Cory Gardner all together"
should be: to lose a Senate race—Cory Gardner—all together
m-dash is important
Mitch McConnell is here in Colorado because so many of the supposedly competitive races are looking so bad for Republicans. They expected to regain the Georgia seat, but Walker is a walking dumpster fire who is well behind in polling. They hoped to retake the Arizona seat, but Mark Kelly is appealing and Masters is not. Nevada is closer than I'd like, but I don't see Laxalt pulling ahead. Fetterman will easily clear a pickup in PA. There's a decent chance that RonJon will lose in Wisconsin. And JD Vance is screwing up Ohio badly enough that we could pick up that.
Colorado is how far down on the Republican wishlist? This is a sign of desperation.
That all makes sense Phoenix, and I hope it bears true for the Senate. Things look a lot better lately.
The house though – we are going to have to sit through 2 years of baseless Benghazi type "investigate the investigators" hearings. It will be a massive waste of taxpayer money, time and energy, but they will do it for sure.
Of course they will. Fox needs the programming.
It will be 24/7 about Hunter Biden and his laptop. I imagine they will need to squeeze in some coverage of the other MAGA-World atrocities: cessation of construction on the big, beautiful wall and the stolen 2020 election.
Should Biden announce that he will not run in 2024, they will turn their fire on everyone else in the running. Remember how McCarthy crowed about bloodying up HRC with the Benghazi hearings.
If Biden drops out, then Hunter's laptop probably stays closed but they will have an orgy of other investigations. What did Gavin Newsom really do at the French Laundry restaurant? What did Kamela Harris do, or fail to do, as DA and AG? What went on during Bernie Sanders' years as a Trotskyite? And precisely how Native-American is Elizabeth Warren?
The tops of investigations just write themselves. And MAGA World will eat it all up.
The election of the majority leader is, in and of itself, sufficient reason to back Michael Bennet. Period. End of discussion.