Has Mitch decided to retire or has he just committed political suicide?  I lived in KY for a little less than half my life (mid 60s now) but since I still live in Indiana, I sort of keep track of my birth state shenanigans.  What the heck was Mitch thinking with his BS attack on (ex) President Trump?  I cannot imagine any conservative Kentuckian ever voting for that back-stabbing POS again.  You guys have got to get together and put someone strong up against him in the next primary that can not only beat that RINO but can beat whatever leftest pile of pooh the Democrat party puts up against him.  Or maybe he is retiring and doesn't care what he says or does since he won't be running again and figures bad publicity is better than no publicity now that he is not the majority speaker of the Senate?  

I have not really liked him for many years but as usual, he was better than the choice on the Democrat side.  I certainly was glad I did not have to hold my nose and vote for him but I really hope you guys south of the muddy can find someone to beat him in the next primary, if he runs again, as well as beat the Democrat candidate.  I don't think the Democrat party is as good at stealing elections as they are in other states, yet anyway, considering how red the KY house and senate are.  Except for the governor's seat and Mayor McBike lane in Louisville and a couple of other Democrat mayors, as well as that Yarmuth fool, KY seems to be a pretty firm red state.  I sure was proud to be an ex-Kentuckian when Republicans took the KY house and senate a few years ago.

He's showing his true Swamp colors. We need term limits.

He was just re-elected, you have 6 more years left of dealing with him. He said this would be the last time he ran.  His true colors are really coming out now though.  He made a statement that getting elected was the most important thing...and he we all thought standing up for our values was.  He will hand pick his successor and dump millions on them in the primary to make sure he continues to have influence.  He has helped a large number of state level politicians get elected and re-elected over the years.  That buys him a lot of loyalty.  He also has strong influence over the state level Republican party, meaning if you aren't a chosen candidate they are not going to help you when it comes to the primary.  Not having their influence and financial support is going to make it hard for someone else to win but not impossible.

Lord I wish there was some realistic way to force term limits. It seems clear they will never vote to limit themselves.

What he said. ^

Going to be really difficult for me to vote for anyone The Turtle supports, unless I personally witness that guy healing the blind, curing a leper, and walking on water.

Comer is on the "fool me once" list as well.

I'm going with the most electable politician on a gop ticket. A bad republican is better than a good democrat any day, as we are all about to learn. Trump tried and the machine ate his lunch, it started with him losing the house. McConnell is just being honest with the reality in Washington. Yes he is a swamper but I can be better off with who he chooses over what the dems choose. Trump is going to screw us if he isn't picked for the gop ticket. He will simply split the gop vote ensuring a democratic win.

you aint gonna fix or drain the swamp, the best you can hope for is a creature you can at least get some of the shit you want. For me its just lower taxes and no anti gun legislation. But that's a pipe dream for the next 2 years, maybe longer.

I appreciate those comments. And I have always been in agreement in the past. Now however I'm really starting to wonder. I'm not so sure McConnell is being honest. He had a chance to stand up for and speak up for the honest voting American people and he chose not to. There was a completely legal and Constitutional avenue for dealing with the corrupt election. He chose not to take it.  So if the Republicans are going to let the Democrats cheat and steal elections to the point that they have majorities what good is electing a swamp Republican? I think Republican party might need to die so something can replace it. And I know the harm done before that could ever happen would be considerable. They are putting me in a very difficult spot. And I'm getting angry.

Term limits would be retarded. Would do nothing but give more influence to the entrenched, unelected bureaucracy.

I'm not familiar with this opinion. I'm don't agree but I want to be open to changing my mind. Can you explain a little more how this works? Thanks.

Perpetually having inexperienced lawmakers would make swamp creatures/bureaucrats more influential because they’d have more experience in how things work.

That’s not to mention that when they don’t have to worry about getting re elected they have no reason not to go full retard with graft and corruption. As it is now they at least have to dial it back enough to not get booted out immediately

There’s no fixing democracy with term limits or other bandaids, an elected government is a direct mirror of the populace it governs. We’re a decadent, degenerate, society who has seen its peak. Short of a cultural revolution that drastically changes the ideals of the populace our course is set.

Thanks. I respectfully disagree with just about everything you said but I appreciate you taking the time to state it. There are advantages and disadvantages to term limits. I just feel the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Also what we have been doing certainly isn't working so that's more reason to try term limits. Could it really get worse? I'm willing to take that risk.

If we were to do any changes at all, I think the only one I'd get on board with is repealing the 17th Amendment. Get power back to the states and away from the feds.

Also when they know it is their last term they no longer have to pretend and can do what they want.  We see that now with how big of jerk McConnell is being to everyone.  We saw that with Rick Scott as Gov in Florida, he was term limited out so he rammed through a dozen gun control bills.

The inexperience is an issue though, things will move slower and have more problems.  On the corruption side there should be less because they don't have enough to become corrupt or bought by everyone.  McConnell has connections to everyone and can make anything happen, it is nearly impossible because everyone in power in the entire government pretty much owes him a favor.  Boot people after 4 years though and everything would be chaos.

I would suggest we start with something like 18 years in office for House and Senate and you are term limited out.  That's a starting point and see how that goes.  It doesn't create massive turn over but it prevents what we see today where people have almost 40 years of connections and influence they can use to exert control over literally the entire government.  If they want a long career they still have to do their job well.

I think we’d be better off with age limits. No one under 30 or over 65 would settle most of the issues.

That would be a good idea as well, at least for the federal level.  That would still allow for someone to be in office 35 years.  AOC is 31 years old, do you really want someone like her in office office for 34 more years?  Get both, age limits plus the 18 year cap.  

Chaos and slow action are better than the current swamp BS. Inexperience could also lead to innovation and improvement.

I think we would be best served by making it impossible for politicians to make a career out of being a Rep or Senator. Term limits and no retirement benefits.

Obviously I am just going to respectfully disagree with a few on this.

I don’t think I have the right to tell the people of AOC’s district they can’t keep electing her if she represents their interests.

I think that’s a thing we forget. Congress doesn’t represent the US as a whole. The critters represent their districts.

I’d really rather see us break up into smaller regional blocks, because no, I don’t want someone like AOC writing laws that apply to me.

Are saying Mitch is doing a great job representing you?  If not do you honestly believe there is any option to replace him given all his connections, influence, and the amount of money thrown at him?  

That is the problem, once a politician reaches a certain level they become nearly untouchable.  Part of that is the party will always back the sitting politician.  Anyone that wants to run in a primary against a sitting politician gets no help from the party, has to pay for every thing out of pocket, and the politician and party influence donors not to donate at the threat of being blacklisted.  That happened the other year with Bevin.  KY State Rep. Robert Goforth ran against him.  The Republican leadership killed every single one of his bills that he introduced because he challenged a sitting Republican.  He had some very good pro-gun bills that I wanted to pass.  When I brought them up to another pro-gun legislature the conversation took a very sharp and mean turn, "those bills are dead.  He challenged Bevin.  His political career is done as nothing he supports will ever get through.".  Do you consider the people in his districts as being represented when that happens? He still had a vote but none of his interests were heard.

Another example, take Paul Ryan for example, he had 2 primary challengers, the public that supported those challengers were very vocal and helped them raise a massive amount of funds compared to other US House primaries.  Combined they raised about $5 million, for a primary. Paul Ryan did no campaigning, did no fundraisers, and started off with a war chest of $15 million because Mitch and the establishment wanted him there.  He still won the most votes but he didn't get the large war chest he used because people in his district wanted him.  In that case both the age and term limits wouldn't have stopped Ryan...but they would have eliminated Mitch from running and using his position to fund Ryan.  Then the voters of that district might have had a more for election cycle.  

My goal would be to prevent politicians from being in office so long they become nearly untouchable.  The same goes for Pelosi, Schumer and the handful of others with over 30 years in office.  They only get replaced when they decide they no longer want to run.

No, Mitch hasn’t represented me 100% to my beliefs, but no one other than me would.

Do I think he’s done it better than democrat options, yeah, I do.

I’m 29, not sure when the last time he was even primaried was so I can’t speak to that.

As to the question about him being replaceable given money and connections, probably not. But that’s where I think an age limit of 65 comes in instead of term limits. Admittedly I’d also like to see voting rights limited to people between 30 and 65 as well.

At the end of the day any political system is imperfect, I don’t expect any government short of me being a dictator to align with my beliefs completely. I diverge with most on this forum in that I don’t view democracy/representative government/our constitution as a sacred cow, so if we scrapped the whole thing and found something that did better at defending what is truly good and true in Thomistic sense I’d be all for it, my only concern with implementing changes to how things are done in this country is unintended consequences making things worse.

Matt Bevin ran in the primary against Mitch 6 years ago.  It was actually a fairly close race at one point.  Most people I know do not like McConnell but they don't despise him.  He's in the middle ground of a known entity that generally doesn't screw us but one that will never stick his neck out to help us.  Bevin came out of nowhere and people didn't know much about him.  Yet in the end he still got 36% of the vote to Mitch's 60%.  It's hard for people to get to know the new guy when his opponent has unlimited funds and can blanket the airwaves and mailboxes.  Bevin's run against Mitch got his name in front of the public which was a big reason he was able to become Governor.  I believe I did not vote for that race in the primary.  I didn't know enough about Bevin at the time to vote for him but I sure wasn't going to vote for Mitch as he did not represent much of what I believed.  

For voting rights I would like to see the eligibility set to people paying into the tax system or people that have paid into the system for 25 years.  That ties the elected officials who will be spending tax payer money to the actual working class that is paying the taxes that will be spent.  It will never happen but that would greatly curb the current election process of candidates announcing how much "free" stuff they will give to everyone if they get elected.

I do remember Bevin running against him now. I don’t think I voted in that primary either, at 23 I was more interested in chasing skirts than politics.

We can go down a big rabbit hole of who should qualify to hold a voting franchise, we’d probably agree on a lot of it but it’s not gonna make a difference to reality.

I try not to focus too much on how I think oughta be. I’m accepting of the fact that in the US there are more liberals than non liberals, and I’m planning accordingly.

The way to change things is to become more politically active but the more politically active one becomes the more you see the dirt and games that are played.  There are isn't any one solution as there are very few people who actually run for the job.  Considering how much a campaign costs and the how little the job pays in comparison to that, someone has to come from money or know how influence others into supporting them. Before any election even happens the people are either in it for themselves or they are beholden to others.  Then the only way to advance your bills and career is to be loyal to the leadership and help them with there is agenda.  That is why every single elected official that says "I'm going to change Washington just ends up being changed into someone supporting the establishment".  That's where my curtailing the establishment with term limits comes from.  More change over at the top should open some doors at the bottom for better people.  But it's not going to happen as politicians really hate limiting themselves.