KENTUCKY’S
KING
GOP targets. It was six years into
Bill Clinton’s presidency — a time
when the president’s party typically weathers significant losses
— making other seats in conventionally Democratic states appear
vulnerable. Both Barbara Boxer
in California and Patty Murray in
Washington would trail for almost
the entirety of their races that
year, and Russ Feingold created a
takeover opportunity in Wisconsin by placing principle before
politics and setting a strict limit
on his own campaign spending.
“At the beginning of the cycle,
much like last cycle, there was
that early chest thumping on the
Republican side,” says Paul Johnson, executive director of the
Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee for the ’98 race. “It
was advantage Republican and all
sorts of good things were gonna
happen for them.”
But McConnell & Co. fatally miscalculated with their national GOP
message tying Democratic candidates to Clinton and his affair with
White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The president became more
popular during the impeachment
proceedings, and the Republican
attacks galvanized disheartened
Democratic supporters. On elec-
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13
tion night, McConnell’s hound dogs
got neutered. State after state fell
to Democrats. By the time all the
votes were counted, Republicans
hadn’t gained a single Senate seat.
McConnell’s ability to raise
cash for candidates kept him
from being laughed out of Senate
leadership. As head of the NRSC,
he had capitalized on the explosion of “soft money” — unlimited
spending by political parties on
so-called party-building activities,
which often included controversial
advertising critical to campaigns.
In 1998, McConnell raised more
than $37 million in soft money,
according to data from the Center
for Responsive Politics, besting
the NRSC’s previous high-water
mark by 30 percent — unheard of
in an election year with no presidential contest — and eclipsing
the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s 1998 haul. According to the Lexington HeraldLeader, he would raise more than
$90 million in each of his election
cycles during his run as chairman.
McConnell recognized early
the importance of protecting his
turf. There has been no greater
Senate foe of campaign finance
reform. When Feingold and McCain proposed a bill to ban soft
money outright in 1996, McConnell
spearheaded the opposition and
launched a filibuster — at the time