It was about a month ago when Sen. Rick Scott, in his capacity as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, boasted that his party had a path to a majority with 55 seats. It now appears Republicans might end up with a net loss for the election cycle, which is a political disaster for the ambitious Floridian.
As The Hill reported, Scott sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Friday night and tried to shift blame away from him and toward his colleagues in the Senate GOP leadership.
“I think we’ve got to reflect now. What didn’t happen?” said Scott. “I think we didn’t have enough of a positive message. We said everything about how bad the Biden agenda was. It’s bad, the Democrats are radical, but we have to have a plan of what we stand for.”
He pushed a similar line on Fox News yesterday morning, telling Maria Bartiromo, “What do we stand for? What are we hell-bent to get done? The leadership in the Republican Senate says, ‘No, you cannot have a plan. We’re just going to run against how bad the Democrats are.’ And, actually, then they cave into the Democrats.”
Part of the problem with Scott’s assessment is that he did have a plan — and it was ridiculous. The NRSC chair, ignoring his party’s wishes, unveiled a far-right blueprint that would’ve, among other things, raised taxes on tens of millions of American families, while putting Social Security and Medicare in jeopardy.
Democrats were only too pleased to treat the senator’s plan like a piñata for much of the year, and some in the GOP believe Scott’s blueprint did real harm to the party’s prospects.
The Republican’s newest pitch is that his party would’ve been far better off if only more Republicans had run on his wildly unpopular ideas. That’s amusing, but it’s not persuasive.
Another problem with Scott’s assessment is the disconnect between the complaint and the Floridian’s role: He was the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. If Scott was convinced that his party had the wrong message, why didn’t he use his powerful position to change that message?
But complicating matters is the degree to which Scott is contributing to his party’s post-election disarray. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Scott’s allies are now publicly trading barbs with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s allies in ways that help capture the escalating tensions among the ostensible allies.
Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist who previously served as chief of staff to Mr. McConnell, said Mr. Scott made errors in strategy and fundraising in running the campaign arm and accused Mr. Scott of falling short in communicating and consulting with fellow senators. “It was run basically as a Rick Scott super PAC, where they didn’t want or need to input any Republican senators whatsoever,” Mr. Holmes said of the NRSC. “That’s a huge break from recent history where members have been pretty intimately involved.”
Kevin McLaughlin, a former NRSC executive director, added, “It seems to me from the outside looking in that they are much more concerned about chasing headlines and advancing Rick Scott’s political ambitions than they are making a positive impact on Senate races.”
For his part, Chris Hartline, a spokesperson for the Scott-led NRSC, told the Journal that McConnell’s allies, who run the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC, spent months undermining the party’s interests.
Curt Anderson, a political adviser to Scott, added that there’s plenty of blame to go around, “but insecure small people never accept responsibility for failure.” Or put another way, everything’s going smoothly among Senate Republican leaders in the aftermath of a disappointing cycle. Let’s not overlook the larger context. As we discussed last week, Scott appeared to have a larger plan in mind: The Floridian ran unopposed last year in the race to chair the National Republican Senatorial Committee — a position that gave Scott an opportunity to recruit like-minded candidates, make connections with party donors, and create new allies. If the GOP flipped partisan control of the chamber, which seemed likely, Scott would herald himself as the hero who delivered on the party’s goal. At that point, he could continue to climb the ladder. A White House bid was a distinct possibility. Now, in the wake of failure, Scott is scrambling to blame his own party’s colleagues, making a pitch that’s awfully difficult to take seriously.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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