McConnell: Give Us The Keys And We'll Drive It Over The Cliff!

The Kentucky Turtle speaks to a crowd about more gridlock if he become the head of the terrarium. 

Embattled Republican leader opens his mouth again giving his challenger ammunition.

The pork and barrel continues to spill into the state of Kentucky. The turtle and Rand Paul, the two Republican Stallmigos have relatively done nothing other than become a huge headache to President Barack Obama.

He was sucking on the toes of David and Charles Koch. The embattled politico was telling a dinner audience that he's willing to do anything to get that sugar from those billionaire libertarian activists.

David and Charles Koch are billionaire philanthropists who donate to the Republican Party and sometimes the Democratic Party. The liberals view them as vile and evil billionaires.

The New York Times report that a liberal blog got wind of the conversation. McConnell told the mid-June gathering in Dana Point, Calif., that if the Republicans gained control of the Senate and retained control of the House in November, Congress could use the budget process to force the president to roll back his priorities.

“In the House and Senate, we own the budget,” he said, explaining that the initial blueprint on taxes and spending does not require the president’s signature. “So what does that mean? That means that we can pass the spending bill. And I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what’s called placing riders in the bill. No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We’re going to go after them on health care, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board. All across the federal government, we’re going to go after it.”

The channel released audio of three other Republicans in tough Senate races — Representative Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Representative Cory Gardner of Colorado and Joni Ernst, a state senator in Iowa — all of whom praised Charles G. and David H. Koch and the millions of dollars they have provided to help Republican candidates.

To a large extent, Mr. McConnell’s promises are more bluster for the Republican donor base than a foolproof plan. Through a budget procedure called reconciliation, Republicans could clear a path to tax legislation or changes to entitlement programs that could pass later in the year with simple majorities in the House and the Senate.

But unless a Republican majority plans to end the filibuster on legislation as Democrats ended it on some presidential nominees, spending bills with “riders” would need 60 votes in the Senate. If the Republicans win control of the Senate, their majority is almost certain to be short of 60.

Republicans said the recordings were insignificant. Josh Holmes, a senior McConnell campaign aide, said the senator was in no way suggesting a strategy to shut down the government unless Mr. Obama capitulates.

Nonetheless, the audio recordings are likely to become fodder for the campaigns in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa and Kentucky. Democrats, most notably Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, have tried to demonize contributions by the Koch brothers as corruptive to the political system.

The Grimes campaign responded quickly, saying, “Shockingly, Mitch McConnell will do and say anything it takes to secure his grip on personal power, including promising to hurt Kentuckians to benefit billionaires.”

Allison Lunsford Grimes is a formidable challenger in the closely watched U.S. Senate race in Kentucky.

Ms. Ernst and Mr. Gardner made a pitch to donors that their support was about more than the Senate races. If they win in November, it would lay the groundwork for turning Iowa and Colorado Republican in the 2016 presidential race, they said. Mr. Obama won both states twice.

“If we win Colorado, we overturn the narrative the Democrats are trying to build about the interior Rocky Mountain states, that you can’t win statewide in the Rocky Mountain West anymore,” Mr. Gardner said. “We can defeat that notion. We can flip it upside down in Colorado by winning in 2014, making the pathway for whoever our nominee is in 2016.”

Ms. Ernst said: “We are setting the stage for Iowa as the first-in-the-nation’s caucus that all of our presidential hopefuls come, come to. We’re setting the stage in 2014 with a Republican victory, so that likelihood is in 2016 we can go red as a state and assist any Republican nominee from Iowa. So we’re setting the stage for the presidency.”