In the final weeks of the election, Democrats have Barack Obama making a final pitch to voters, and Republicans have Donald Trump.
When all is said and done, Obama will have hit at least half a dozen razor-thin battleground states with the same message: Republicans don't give a damn about you, they're out to help themselves.
As for Trump, Republicans are deploying him to the exceedingly GOP-friendly territory of Florida and Iowa while hoping he can give a final bump to his half-baked candidates in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Depending on what happens next week, Republicans will either curse those last two stops or hail them.
While Obama is all upside in a true battleground state, Trump has tanked the Republican Party at the federal level in two consecutive cycles by galvanizing anti-MAGA majorities to get to the polls.
Just before jumping back on the trail in Iowa Thursday, Trump kicked off his final midterm blitz with a jab at one of his biggest political enemies: Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Asked by the conservative outlet Real America's Voice about ongoing debt ceiling negotiations between the two parties in Congress, Trump offered, "Mitch McConnell keeps allowing it to happen. I mean, they ought to impeach Mitch McConnell if he allows that. Frankly, Mitch McConnell, something has to be, they have something on him."
Impeach Mitch! Now that's one hell of a closing message, especially as Republicans are desperately hoping to regain control of the upper chamber.
But Thursday morning wasn't the last we heard about dethroning McConnell as Senate GOP leader.
At Trump's Thursday night Sioux City rally to bolster the faltering reelection bid of seven-term incumbent GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia took her own swipe at the supposed master Senate tactician.
After hailing Trump as the GOP's "one true leader," Greene told the crowd, "Republicans are going to have to be the new Republican Party. We can no longer be the party of Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Dick Cheney, George Bush and Mitt Romney … or any other sell-out, weak Republican."
Grassley, who's been a McConnell ally for decades, used his moment on Trump’s stage to lay out Republicans' plan to fight inflation.
"I’m not going to give up on trying to get political bias out of the FBI," he said. "And I’m not going to give up on my investigation of Hunter Biden and other Bidens."
And when Trump finally arrived at the event intended to boost Grassley, he plugged his own 2024 reboot.
"Get ready, that’s all I’m telling you, very soon. Get ready," Trump responded as the MAGA crowd chanted his name.
At another point, Trump offered, "In order to make our country successful and safe and glorious, I will very, very, very probably do it again."
Those two statements—the closest Trump’s come to announcing a 2024 bid—stole virtually every national headline.
Both Grassley and McConnell must have been thrilled with Trump's laser-like focus on bringing one home for the team.
And if anyone better "get ready," to steal a phrase, it’s McConnell. If Republicans really do recapture the Senate next week, Trump's acolytes will be doing everything in their power to knock off McConnell—the guy who made the fateful decision to pass on knocking off Trump.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
