Most of the Republicans who serve alongside Mitch McConnell have staunchly defended the ailing senator, but that support will soon shift as they start to think about their political futures, according to a political commentator.
Longtime political observer Michael Tomasky wrote for The New Republic on Friday that their predicted behavior has "as much to do with Biden as it does Trump." For now, he said, Republicans are sticking by their leader in the senate.
"Word is that some senators are considering a meeting to try to figure out what to do about this. There does exist a rump anti-McConnell faction of a sort: Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott, the old Medicare fraudster, mounted a challenge to McConnell last year. It failed badly, but Scott did get 10 votes. One Republican senator told Politico that any attempt to dethrone McConnell 'will be a rerun of last time,"' the outlet reported.
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Still, Tomasky wrote, there will be a turn in the tide because of one fact: McConnell is about the same age as Biden.
"Why? Age, obviously. McConnell is 81. Biden is 80. Trump and the GOP (and Fox News and One America and Sinclair and so on) are going to be making Biden’s age a major issue in the presidential campaign. And I have to say you can’t blame them. Polls show that Biden’s age is obviously his greatest vulnerability," he wrote, adding that the Republicans will turn.
"This seems to set up a situation where his fellow Republicans are going to throw McConnell to the wolves. Think about it. If they keep McConnell and defend him and say everything’s fine, they’re saying that an octogenarian who is clearly losing his connection to terra firma is just fine, everything’s hunky dory, and he’s totally up to the job," Tomasky added. "That is implicitly saying that Biden too is up to the job of president. And that is something they cannot do."
