There’s an interesting Federalist article out this morning, which tapped into something I’ve been noticing more and more – Mitch McConnell pulling support from GOP senate candidates who have won their primaries and are in fighting trim to take on the Democratic incumbents. They are competitive, and the senate Minority leader, whom one would think would want to be the Majority leader, has taken his ball and gone home in several winnable instances, ostensibly because they weren’t the folks he’d endorsed.

Who’s on the ground, doing yeoman’s work supporting every GOP candidate he can get to, with limited funds, and boatloads of enthusiasm?

Rick Scott, head of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign.

Republican senators are set to face two options this January. The first: a GOP Senate minority led by longtime leader Sen. Mitch McConnell. The second: a Republican majority, led by Florida Sen. Rick Scott.

Theirs is a fight that’s been publicly brewing since (at least) McConnell’s December declaration that there would be no 2022 GOP agenda. After another month of missteps, however, their battle might have real-world consequences.

Despite D.C.’s omni-useless conventional wisdom about the GOP Senate leader’s endless savvy, McConnell has given up on the duties of his job, turning on both his voters and his party. Scott, by contrast, is clearly aiming for the job — and is working hard to show he deserves it. Who gets it might depend on which party wins this November.

As Christopher Bedford’s piece points out, you have to backtrack to February of this year. Months prior, McConnell had announced there would be “no legislative agenda for the 2022 agenda” ( Excusez-moi?), because playing defense and loyal opposition was effort enough, perhaps? Whatever his reasoning behind curling his flippers up into his carapace, there was no budging him. Rick Scott felt action – and a platform, a statement of something Republicans could stand united for – was absolutely imperative, and had to be articulated. So he introduced his “12 Point Plan to Rescue America” (with more in-depth on each point at the link).

1. Education – Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them.
2. Color Blind Equality – Government will never again ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government form.
3. Safety and Crime – The soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior will end. We will re-fund and respect the police because, they, not the criminals, are the good guys.
4. Immigration – We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.
5. Growth / Economy – We will grow America’s economy, starve Washington’s economy, and stop Socialism.
6. Government Reform and Debt – We will eliminate all federal programs that can be done locally, and enact term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress.
7. Fair Fraud-Free Elections – We will protect the integrity of American Democracy and stop left-wing efforts to rig elections.
8. Family – We will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs.
9. Gender, Life, Science – Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science:
10. Religious Liberty and Big Tech – Americans will be free to welcome God into all aspects of our lives
11. America First – We are Americans, not globalists.
12. Cutting Taxes – NOTE FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN: This plan cuts taxes. Nothing in this plan has ever, or will ever, advocate or propose, any tax increases, at all.

There’s plenty to argue over, minutia to pick at, quibble over, and debate (oh, yeah) in the statements themselves, but there’s also a solid 80% core of those bullet points that the majority of Republicans are already saying. The important thing is the statement itself – We are here – not some nebulous concepts floating in the ether that GOP candidates all kinda, sorta go along with. From the hardest right MAGA to your Mid-Atlantic moderate, there is nothing terrifying in those 12 assertions themselves.

Scott’s advocacy for all GOP candidates extends to using his Rescue America platform to go after Biden independent of the Senate hierarchy. Karen Townshend here at HotAir wrote about his first shot-across-the-bow in May, and he has kept the pressure on. Here he is with Martha MacCaullum after Biden’s astonishing “Sieg Bile!” speech in Philadelphia:

There are so many current concerns any GOP candidate could hang on any given one of those points, they should be using them like a checklist. If we bounce around, take No. 7 – Fraud-Free Elections. Thursday, the Michigan Supreme Court approved a Democratic-sponsored “Voting Rights Amendment” to be on the ballot in November that the local news stations noted did not disclose what parts of the Constitution would change because of this amendment:

… That group argued PTV’s petition language did not list everything in the constitution it would change or cancel – or in legal terms, “alter and abrogate.” Democratic board members and PTV argued that the board’s role in that vote was only toward approving signatures, not rehashing language that was approved months ago…

…Among PTV’s provisions are nine days of early in-person voting; requiring state-funded absentee ballot drop boxes and postage for ballots and applications; and requiring military and overseas ballots be counted if postmarked by Election Day.

The constitutional amendment would also bar harassing conduct while voting; allow donations to fund election operations if publicly disclosed; and allow voters to fill out a single absentee ballot application to vote in all future elections.

What would they lose? Local and legislative control to the sole purview of the secretary of state.

…If Michigan voters pass the initiative this fall, the proposed constitutional amendment would completely overhaul the state’s election laws. Among the changes are requiring state-funded “absentee ballot drop boxes” and “postage for applications and ballots,” allowing for private “donations to fund elections,” and providing voters with a “right” to fill out a single absentee ballot application “to vote absentee in all [future] elections.” This would keep mass mail-in balloting, the least secure form of elections, in place after such measures caused a chaotic 2020 election.

The proposed initiative also seeks to empower Michigan’s secretary of state in auditing election results. If approved by voters come November, the provision would mandate that only the secretary of state “shall conduct election audits,” while simultaneously prohibiting any “officer or member of the governing body of a national, state, or local political party, and no political party precinct delegate, [from having] any role in the direction, supervision, or conduct of an election audit.”

Oh, you betcha they didn’t want anyone reading that and doing the math.

No. 6 – Government Reform. We all know about the FBI, IRS, etc, but do you remember when Trump tried to move, say, the Bureau of Land Management out of D.C., to where there was the land they actually managed? Not ONLY did the Beltway Fed employees not want to leave their city environs for – God forbid – something more deplorably flyover rustic, with dirt, it was…RACIST.

Trump’s move of Bureau of Land Management HQ undercut diversity, watchdog finds
Government Accountability Office report also finds headquarters move to Colorado led to ‘confusion and inefficiency’ at BLM

…As Trump officials were moving the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management from Washington, D.C., to Colorado two years ago, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, issued a stark warning to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt: The department risked a “significant legal liability” by driving Black employees from an agency that was overwhelmingly White.

ENOUGH al-freakin’-ready. Everything needs to be firehosed. What Republican couldn’t get behind any of that, and bust their butt for our competitive candidates, like Blake Masters and J.D. Vance, who could get us closer?

Democrats have given up on you. I never will. We’re going to put an end to smuggling and illegal immigration. pic.twitter.com/JrstTp0PNu

— Blake Masters (@bgmasters) May 5, 2022

The senate minority leader, that’s who. When it’s game time, and you can’t be bothered, it’s time for a new player.

I think Rick Scott hit all the right notes .

…And the truth is, all our candidates are great in this regard: They all oppose inflation, recession, open borders, violent crime, and 87,000 new IRS agents brought to America by Biden and this crop of Senate Democrats. And I will fight for all of them.

Yes, I’m an optimist. And I’m a cheerleader for our candidates. And I get a lot of crap for it from the D.C. crowd who tell me I shouldn’t sound so bullish or I should do more to set expectations. I’m not playing that game because each one of our candidates presents a stark contrast to the failed agenda of Biden and the Democrats.

Let me be clear — we will overcome the Washington naysayers and their anonymous quotes, we will beat the Democrats, and we will take control of the Senate this fall. Write it down.

And when we do, we will be in a position to stop this confused and ridiculous president from further damaging our great country and present a positive agenda that will be good for all of America. As a side benefit, we will be able to ignore the fools who have been trash-talking Republican candidates and Republican voters.

That’s a win-win in my book.

He fights. THAT’S a win-win.