Ken Wolf, history professor emeritus at Murray State University, posed an interesting question to me:
“President-elect Joe Biden will take office in January at a time of profound political division. Does he have a secret weapon that will energize Americans to work together to solve our deep-seated problems?”
Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell, with 80 years in office between them, have a little-known history of making deals, and even refer to each other as friends.
But let’s be clear, the Great Obstructionist Moscow Mitch spent the last 12 years shutting down Obama’s judge nominations, letting Democrat House bills pile up on his desk, and is currently holding city and state governments hostage during this pandemic while millions of American are looking into the abyss.
So with a closely divided Senate, Joe and Mitch’s personal dealings will be key to putting our COVID-19 emergency and then our economy back together.
Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., thinks the Biden-McConnell relationship “can work for the benefit of our country.”
“They both know how to compromise, get things done, and they trust each other. They’re not going to agree on everything, but they can make things work and move this country forward,” Hagel emphasizes.
McConnell, the only Republican senator to attend the 2015 funeral of Joe Biden’s son Beau, calls Biden “a real friend, a trusted partner.”
During the Obama administration, when negotiations between Senate Republicans and the White House stalled, Vice-President Biden — who served in the Senate for more than 30 years —would get the deal across the finish line.
“Biden believed that with cordiality and mutual respect, you can find a way to get to an agreement,” said Don Graves, director of domestic and economic policy for then VP Biden. “There was never a point where they walked away having said things that they would regret later.”
Biden and McConnell have previously hammered out deals to extend the George W. Bush tax cuts, raise the debt ceiling, and pass the 21st Century Cures Act, a system of sharing electronic health records with patients.
“If you know anything about Sen. McConnell, he is not a particularly verbal individual. He’s very good at listening and allows himself unexpressed thought,” volunteered a former McConnell staffer.
“But President-elect Biden is quite the opposite,” the staffer continued. “He is very talkative. And that was a useful kind of yin and yang relationship because his ability to ‘talk it out’ is how we found places of potential compromise.”
Another longtime staffer witnessed McConnell’s engagement with both then-Vice President Biden and “lame duck” President Donald Trump. There was a stark difference in McConnell’s demeanor upon returning from negotiations with each man. It was obvious that Biden had realistic expectations of what McConnell could and could not get done – unlike Trump, who was oblivious to the legislative process.
For Biden, Democrats have taken him to task over his dealings with McConnell. Some Senate Democrats are calling on Biden to make aggressive use of executive action to accomplish the more progressive elements of his agenda, bypassing McConnell altogether since they believe he’s likely to be a roadblock for what the Democratic party wants to accomplish.
McConnell’s caucus is likely to feature a few senators who want to run for president in 2024 and are unlikely to make deals with Biden, handing Democrats any victories. McConnell will weigh the needs of his members seeking re-election in 2022 and who may want to bring home bipartisan accomplishments, as well as others more open to bipartisan deal making like Mitt Romney of Utah.
The most consequential variable still at play is simply which party controls the Senate after the Georgia runoff elections on Jan. 5.
Looking back at the Obama presidency, the Republican playbook was to blockade as much of the president’s agenda as possible. Some don’t see that changing simply because an old friend is now in the White House.
With Trump refusing to acknowledge the election results, McConnell has yet to publicly point to Biden as the winner. But Biden to his credit has downplayed the importance of McConnell siding with Trump following the election.
Observers say where the Biden-McConnell personal relationship may pay off is in a more orderly process for must-pass bills, lessening the risk of government shutdowns, and much-needed compromise. Democrats and Republicans have speculated the relationship could bear fruit in areas like infrastructure, tech, broadband expansion, and emergency coronavirus relief.
With this not-so-secret weapon, Joe and Mitch can restore true separation of powers, checks and balances, and our country above party.
Naïve?
Only time will tell.
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