So, Ben Sasse won in Nebraska SEN last night.

And Operation We Are One Big, Happy Fleet is already up and running:

Mitch McConnell’s troops are extending an olive branch to Nebraska Senate candidate Ben Sasse after Sasse said Tuesday that he would “absolutely” support McConnell as Senate majority leader if the Republican conference chooses the Kentucky senator for the post. “I’m a team player and looking forward to supporting whoever our leader is,” Sasse told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd.

Praise from the McConnell camp, which vowed to oppose any candidate, including Sasse, endorsed by the insurgent Senate Conservatives Fund, was forthcoming. A McConnell ally tells National Review Online that Sasse is a “very practical conservative who’s more interested in achieving the right policy outcome than engaging in a quixotic civil war with his own party.” The Sasse campaign, for the time being, is not returning the love. “We’re focused on our get-out-the-vote operation,” says Sasse adviser Jordan Gehrke.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: now that Ben Sasse has won neither he nor Mitch McConnell has any interest at all in operating at cross-purposes.  It is doubtful that the two will ever actually like each other, but McConnell rather badly wants to be Senate Majority Leader*.  If that means having McConnell’s bluff called on his no-support-for-SCF stance, so be it.  And Sasse, obviously, wants to be in the Senate.  If that means playing nice with the guy who was on the other side in the primary, again, so be it.

This is the way the world runs, folks.  And if you’re depressed, consider the Democrats’ problem.  They’re not going to be able to get elected in Nebraska any kind of candidate that they’d like at all.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*On the matter of the Kentucky Republican primary I have no official opinion at all, past the usual I am sure that the voters will decide for themselves and a general reluctance to write stories attacking Republican candidates.

9 thoughts on “So, Ben Sasse won in Nebraska SEN last night.”

  1. Moe, your postscript has to be among the faintest praise ever uttered. It is deserving of applause.
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    That said, neither ol’ Mitch nor Sasse are interested in a public grudge match.
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    Mew
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    p.s. I’m getting an Alison for Kentucky ad in the ad-bar. About the only thing I’m confident of, having spoken to my associates in Kentucky, is that the next Senator won’t be Alison.

  2. I have no doubt that McConnell will keep his seat.
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    Kind of like my own Rep, Mike Simpson. (Worthless SOB that he is.)
    Pork is one way to have people owe you favors. Another is to actively run interference with federal regulators on behalf of your constituents. (In the sure knowledge that most of these constituents won’t realize that you were co-sponsor of the laws making their lives miserable.) Publicly destroying potential rivals doesn’t hurt, either. If you can get federal regulators to do it for you, so much the better.
    And of course, there are scorched earth tactics in the primary, while using kid gloves in the general…
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    I would dearly love to see both of them unemployed.
    But I don’t expect it.

    1. “I have no doubt that McConnell will keep his seat.”
      That depends on how far conservatives are willing to go. I don’t believe in fate.

      1. I don’t expect conservatives to vote for either of them, if that’s what you’re implying.
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        The sad reality is that we’re a minority in the Republican party.
        Now, there’s a chance we can pull it off, even though many of the factors are beyond our control.
        But don’t get cocky.
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        If Simpson survives the primary, frankly, he’s a shoo-in. Clinton destroyed the independence of the state Democratic parties. Any Democratic candidate must pass ever more extreme litmus tests, which make them unelectable in the state.

        1. “I don’t expect conservatives to vote for either of them, if that’s what you’re implying.”
          I was implying something beyond staying at home. Let’s call it “The Vote that Must Not Be Named.”

          1. So mote it be!

            In a purely theoretical sense, of course; if a major leader of the Institutional Republicans lost their place at the trough because there was a point beyond which the Base of the party could not be pushed, there would be ripple effects. And a certain clarity would replace ambiguity.

  3. It’s kind of sad, but ‘not actively campaigning for the Democrat when their guy loses’ is at least a step in the right direction for the establishment types. I’m not sure we’ll ever get up to ‘support Conservatives’ though.

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