Dear fellow MoveOn member,
A few days ago, I got an email from my friends at MoveOn about a
problem—and an opportunity.
Polls show that Mitch McConnell is the least popular senator in the
country, with an approval rating in the low 30s. More than 60% of Kentucky
voters say "it's time for someone new," and multiple strong Democratic
candidates are looking to get into the race.^1
Clearly, this is an opportunity that we simply can't afford to pass up.
But McConnell is up for re-election at the same time as Donald Trump, and
Kentucky isn't going to be one of the key swing states that MoveOn and
other progressive groups planned to focus on during the 2020 election.
So MoveOn asked me if I thought we could raise enough money to fund a
whole additional campaign to take on McConnell, while ALSO fully funding
MoveOn's plan to beat Trump in presidential battleground states like
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida.
Without hesitation, I told them, "Let's go for it." And now I'm asking you
to help us make it happen. Will you chip in $5 a month to
help take on McConnell AND Trump at the same time?
[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in monthly to help defeat Mitch McConnell AND Donald
Trump.
[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
When I was secretary of labor in the 1990s, McConnell was a young
Republican senator from Kentucky.
Even then, it was clear that he was different from other Republicans.
He was more cunning and devious. He seemed to relish the role of the
cynical Washington, D.C. insider, teaming up with lobbyists to shamelessly
manipulate the rules of the Senate to push his agenda.
But what really made McConnell stand out was his single-minded thirst for
power—and his willingness to do anything to get it.
When Senator John McCain built a bipartisan coalition in favor of campaign
finance reform, McConnell gleefully led the opposition, calling himself
the "Darth Vader" of campaign finance reform.^2 Because to McConnell,
money is power, and he will fight anything that cuts into his power.
Now, 25 years later, McConnell is majority leader of the Senate, using his
power to rig the system more brazenly than ever before.
When in his final year in office President Barack Obama nominated Merrick
Garland to replace Antonin Scalia as a Supreme Court justice, McConnell
said that there's a rule against that. Now he says that if there's an
opening on the Supreme Court in Trump's last year, the rule no longer
applies.
McConnell rammed through Trump's tax giveaway. He came within one vote of
killing the Affordable Care Act and taking health care away from 20
million Americans.
And after Democrats took back the House of Representatives, he gave
himself a new nickname. He used to be the Darth Vader of campaign finance
reform—but now he calls himself the "Grim Reaper" of EVERY bill that
passes the House.
The good news is that Kentuckians are as fed up with McConnell's cynical
hypocrisy as most other Americans. Even McConnell knows he's in trouble:
He's already started running TV ads, even though his election is a year
and a half away.^3
But MoveOn needs to know that it will have the resources it will take to
beat Trump AND McConnell at the same time.
I'm on board to ditch Mitch. Are you with me? Will you chip in
$5 a month to help out?
[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in monthly to help defeat Mitch McConnell.
[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Robert Reich
Sources:
1. "Poll: 33% of Kentucky voters approve of McConnell," The Hill, February
21, 2019
[link removed]
2. "The Unabashed and Unalterable Foe of the Campaign Finance Bill," The
New York Times, October 2, 1997
[link removed]
3. "Kentucky Leads," Mitch McConnell For Senate, April 17, 2019
[link removed]
Want to support MoveOn's work? The MoveOn community will work every
moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the
damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the
nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that
we must never give up on. And to do it MoveOn needs your ongoing support,
now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?
[ [link removed] ]Yes, I'll chip in $5 a month.
[ [link removed] ]No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
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