BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Sen. Rand Paul urged fellow Republicans to look for areas of agreement with President Obama and congressional Democrats if the GOP captures the Senate in Tuesday’s elections.
Paul predicted that a Republican Senate majority would vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act and oppose President Obama on several fronts. But the libertarian-leaning senator, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, said there was much that the two parties might agree on if the administration and its Democratic allies choose cooperation over obstruction. Republicans need to win six Democratic held seats to win Senate control.
“I’m not saying we don’t have a vote on Obamacare; we should have a vote. I’m not sure how far that goes, but we should have a vote on it,” Paul told reporters, following a campaign rally for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in his hometown. “But I also want to pass some stuff.”
Paul suggested that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was perhaps more responsible for gridlock on Capitol Hill than Obama. He said that McConnell, if he replaces Reid in the top post when the new Congress is seated in January, would loosen the reins and help shepherd legislation to the president’s desk. It would then be up to Obama, Paul said, to decide how to respond.
“We’re going to pass legislation and put it on the president’s desk, and then we’ll see. Then it will be up to the president whether he’s going to be part of gridlock,” Paul said. “I really think Harry Reid’s been the biggest part of gridlock so far in Washington.”
Paul, a Tea Party favorite, has been something of an X factor in McConnell’s bid for a sixth term.
Opposed early on from the right and threatened by a well-funded GOP primary challenge, Paul helped McConnell shore up his conservative base. That, along with a well-run campaign operation, repelled an aggressive and resourced general election challenge from Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, and put the senator on the verge of re-election and in a position to become the next Senate majority leader.
Other than McConnell’s wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Paul was the only public figure to join McConnell on the senator’s barnstorming, seven-stop flight around Kentucky on the final day of the midterm campaign — a sign of his value to McConnell’s prospects and the mutual friendship the two senators have developed. It might have been a coincidence, but the final McConnell rally of the 2014 contest occurred in Bowling Green, Paul’s hometown.
“The whole dynamic will change if Republicans take over the Senate,” Paul said. “Because, really, it will be Republicans doing things and Democrats stopping those things or going along with some of those things. It’s yet to be determined whether President Obama will be like Bill Clinton or whether he will be an obstructionist.”
