The Long Game

by Mitch McConnell

  I was, I have to say, expecting a hue and cry for election reform especially with regard to the Electoral College. This election was the first time since 1888 that a candidate won the popular vote but not the presidency, and at least one poll afterward showed that more than 60 percent of the American people supported a constitutional amendment to replace the Electoral College with a direct national election for president. This was hardly surprising. Since the earliest days of the republic, opponents have raised their scorn against the Electoral College. President Andrew Jackson famously called for its abolition as early as the 1820s, and its opponents have only grown more strident as we have drifted in time and memory from the Founding generation. But thankfully, cooler heads have prevailed. As someone who takes the long view on important matters like this, I support America’s election procedure for two important reasons.

  First, it is an organized and reasonable system for tallying a massive amount of votes. What the Electoral College does is create fifty separate elections in which you can achieve finality. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, it’s winner take all. You carry a state that has twenty-five electoral votes, you get all twenty-five. If we eliminated the Electoral College, we’d frequently be faced with Florida-type recounts on a national level, because it is not uncommon for elections to be very close. Having to conduct a recount of every close election in every precinct in America would create the potential for enormous instability.

  Second, the Electoral College ensures that all Americans get fair and equal representation from their presidential candidates, because presidential elections are state-by-state battles to accumulate a majority in the Electoral College. To say that one candidate won the popular vote and another won the vote of the Electoral College misses the point. Neither in 2000 nor at any other time in American history has the goal of a presidential race been to win the national popular vote. If that were the goal, the electoral strategies of both candidates would have been very different. In efforts to maximize their raw vote totals, you would have seen George W. Bush spending much of his time in his own state of Texas, while Al Gore would have camped out in California. Their campaigns would have been different and the result would have been different.

  Is the Electoral College method of presidential selection the easiest to understand or the most efficient in its execution? No. But our system is not designed to be simple and efficient. It is designed to provide a final result and promote national unity in a large and diverse nation. For two centuries, it has done a pretty good job at that. And I expect it will continue to do so for many centuries to come.

  But in the meantime, as the Electoral College did its job, the future of the Senate was in flux too. We lost five seats—even John Ashcroft lost to Mel Carnahan. He’d later take this difficult loss in good stride, jokingly boasting that no man alive had ever beaten him. Going from a fifty-five-person Republican majority to fifty-fifty, the Senate was dead even for the first time since the 1880s. The situation created a tricky question—who held the majority? After extensive negotiations between Republican leader Trent Lott and Democratic leader Tom Daschle, it was decided that the money allocated to operate the Senate would be divided equally among the two parties, but because Dick Cheney, the vice president (and official president of the Senate), was a Republican, Republicans would be considered the majority.

  The morning of January 20, 2001, dawned with gray skies and the promise of rain, but I woke up feeling giddy. It was Inauguration Day in Washington, and Republicans were about to take control of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954. Since then, Democrats had enjoyed a period of dominance; we’d held control of the House and Senate in the 1990s but, unfortunately, had a Democrat in the White House at the time. Now, finally, it was our turn and I was eager for our chance to move our country in the right direction by pursuing a more conservative agenda under George Bush and our congressional leaders.

  Elaine was awake, already at work in her office upstairs. I fixed the coffee and delivered her a cup before going to my closet to grapple with the important decision about which tie to wear. Standing there, I thought back to my first day at Manual High School, when I watched the president of the student council speak so confidently in front of a few hundred students, in awe of the courage it must have taken to do that. When my mother told me that day, after I voiced my wish to someday speak as the leader of the student body, “You could do that too, if you want to,” I had deeply doubted her, and after becoming the student body president, I took every opportunity that presented itself to get up and speak, to push myself through the discomfort of it. And now here I was, headed to the White House to meet the president-elect, who I would introduce before a crowd of millions. How much I wished my parents were there to join me.

  I arrived at the White House midmorning to meet the other members of the committee, and in the Blue Room, which is typically used to receive a president’s guests, and where the official White House Christmas tree stands, we waited for Clinton, Gore, Bush, and Cheney to arrive. Once they did, there was a fair amount of awkward, silent coffee sipping, but given the close and bitter election, it was better than I had expected. At about 10:45 a.m. we were told the car had arrived to take us to the Capitol. I crowded into one side with my good friend Democrat Chris Dodd, the vice chair of the inauguration committee, while Clinton and Bush sat on the other. It won’t surprise anyone to hear that on the way to the ceremony, Clinton did most of the talking. He was quite animated, telling stories about his experience with protesters, many of whom lined our route to the Capitol.

  Bush listened quietly and watched out the window. When there was finally a pause in the chatter, he said with his trademark smile, “You know, I didn’t realize until recently that there are protesters who have all five fingers, and not just the middle one.” Even Clinton had to laugh at that one.

  Arriving at the Capitol, we were led inside, where we waited to be escorted to the platform. Outside, the choirs of both Manual High School and the University of Louisville performed (there are some advantages to being the chair). I noticed Clinton yawning. He’d been doing the same thing in the car. I leaned toward Bush. “Mr. President, do you notice that Clinton’s yawning a lot?”

  Bush had. “The guy likes to party,” he said. “Maybe he was up all night.”

  Well, we subsequently found out he had been up all night, but he wasn’t partying. He was pardoning. The Constitution grants the sitting president the power to commute the sentences of criminals, and in his last moments in the White House, on his way out the door, Clinton had gone on a pardon binge, issuing 140 of them. Many were highly controversial, but none more so than that of Marc Rich, a wealthy friend of the Clintons who had been indicted on sixty-five federal charges, including tax evasion, racketeering, and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. Rich had fled to Switzerland to avoid the charges, and during Clinton’s presidency, Rich’s wife gave more than $1 million to the Democrats, including $100,000 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate race in New York and $450,000 to the Clinton library foundation. Even Jimmy Carter called his pardon disgraceful.

  When I followed Bush onto the platform, a bitter wind was whipping around the Capitol. Some of the staff of the JCCIC had floated the idea to host the ceremony indoors, in the Capitol Rotunda, which is where Reagan was inaugurated in 1985 because of bad weather. But Bush made the call to conduct the ceremony outside so that the thousands of people who’d traveled to Washington from all corners of America could be part of the event. It was a breathtaking sight—2,000 people sat on the platform, 300,000 others lined the mall. I took my seat next to Bush, feeling exceedingly proud and, I have to admit, more distinguished than I’d ever felt. Until I realized I’d just sat in a puddle. Apparently, someone had forgotten to wipe the rain from the chairs, and as I greeted the people around me, a look of practiced composure on my face, I wondered if they, too, were experiencing the feeling
of very cold water seeping through their clothes and onto their skin.

  “Mitch,” Bush said. “Where’s my podium?”

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  He nodded to the spot a few feet away—the spot from which he would deliver his inaugural address in about thirty more minutes. “Where’s my podium?”

  He was right. There was definitely no podium. “Don’t worry about it, Mr. President.” This was the only thing I could think to say, because I had no idea where his podium was. Surely my job as the committee chair did not mean I was the one who was supposed to rent a podium? It was a ludicrous idea and one that my staff later found very funny because, in fact, a dedicated team of people had been working on the inaugural ceremonies for more than a year, long before anyone knew who’d be sworn in that day. Blueprints for the platform had been finalized the summer before, invitations were designed months in advance, and security plans were developed over twelve months. When the music stopped playing, a door built into the floor opened, and the podium rose from underneath. I looked at Bush and nodded, as if I’d known all along this was planned.

  At 11:30 a.m., I called the fifty-fourth inauguration, the first of the millennium, to order. Witnessing Bush being sworn in just after noon by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, his hand on the same Bible his father had used twelve years earlier, was truly a remarkable sight. There was the incoming president’s father, who was defeated by the outgoing president. And the outgoing president’s vice president, who received a greater number of votes, but yet was defeated by the incoming president. All of them standing nearly side-by-side, each one having had an enormous impact on the lives of the others. It was further evidence, if we needed any, that there’s always an orderly transfer of power in the United States and the losers sooner or later take their medicine and honor the results of the election and move on. And that’s, of course, what happened again, as it has every four years since the beginning of the republic.

  After the swearing-in, I took the podium and looked up, through eyeglasses dotted with raindrops. It was my high honor to be the first to introduce George W. Bush to millions of Americans, and citizens around the globe, in this way: “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.”

  When the ceremony was complete, I accompanied Bush and others to the President’s Room inside the Capitol, located near the Senate floor, to sign the nomination papers designating the members of his cabinet. I couldn’t have been prouder that one of those members was my wife, Elaine Chao, the new secretary of labor and the first Asian Pacific American woman appointed to a US president’s cabinet.

  When the celebrations finished, and we prepared to head into the 107th Congress, I was ready to move on. The election process had been heart-wrenching, and it had tested the bonds of our union. But it did not break us. Soon political life returned to normal with a new president and the peaceful transference of power, proving, yet again, that the United States is truly a resilient nation.

  An idea that would be tested, in the most unfathomable way, just months later.

  In September, there’s a back-to-school feeling in Washington, and when I returned from an August recess spent in Kentucky meeting with constituents and catching up with friends, the halls of the Capitol were infused with renewed energy and optimism. Bush’s first months in office had been tremendously successful. In June, just before breaking for the recess, he had signed into law the first of what would be two sweeping tax cuts. It felt good to deliver such a key policy so early in his presidency, and I was equally hopeful about what we would accomplish his second year. As I settled back into work, my calendar got booked with working breakfasts, policy lunches, and committee meetings. I’m certainly nowhere near the most social politician in Washington, but every year there are a few get-togethers I actually look forward to. So it was this fall, when Elaine and I received an invitation from President George W. and Laura Bush to the Congressional Picnic, a Texas-style cookout on the South Lawn of the White House. It was scheduled for the evening of September 11.

  That morning, I was preparing to head out for my day when I watched, on television, the second plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. I spent the remaining hours of that terrible day as most Americans did: at home, watching TV, reeling from the enormity of the tragedy and fearful about what this horrific attack would mean for my nation, my government, and my children. Like everyone else who witnessed those terrible images, I knew our world had forever changed. I immediately called my office. Hunter Bates, my chief of staff at the time, told me the Capitol was being evacuated. Elaine was already at work at the US Department of Labor Building, just across from the Capitol, and she soon arrived home, accompanied by thirty-five members of her staff who, due to traffic and the shutdown of public transportation, couldn’t make it home themselves. Someone went out later to pick up pizzas, but other than that, we all stayed together, watching the news.

  In the late afternoon, I joined most other members of Congress for a briefing at the Capitol Police Headquarters. Democrat Tom Daschle, who had become majority leader the previous June as a result of Jim Jeffords’s switch from Republican to Independent, announced that the Senate would convene the next day. We all bowed our heads in a moment of silence for those who had lost their lives. Standing on the Capitol steps, knowing that had it not been for the heroic actions of the passengers of United Flight 93, who had brought their plane down rather than let it be flown into the very building behind us, I felt a complex mix of emotions. Grief, yes, but also anger at the evilness behind these terrible acts, and pride in our strength in the face of them. Afterward, as people began to disperse, someone started singing “God Bless America.” Everyone stopped and joined in, our voices echoing off the stone of the Capitol. That moment made it perfectly clear that despite what the terrorists may have desired, they weren’t going to change the American way. Our resilience was needed now more than ever, and it was found in abundance. The shocking events of that day did not weaken or undermine the foundations of our democracy, foundations that were forged more than two hundred years ago and have been continuously strengthened throughout our history. We fought for our freedoms then, and we would continue to defend them now.

  The unity felt the evening before informed all our dealings the next day. In some ways, it seemed fitting that the Senate was so closely divided at 51–49, because in the face of the terrorist attacks, we were not Democrats or Republicans. We were Americans, elected to represent and defend our country. The American people rallied in support of the new war against terrorism, and in the wake of the attacks, the horror and grief of these events pressing on us, Congress rushed to strengthen security.

  On September 14, I attended a memorial service at the National Cathedral for those killed in the attacks, and sat behind Bob Mueller, the new head of the FBI, who’d been on the job just one week. Before the service began, I patted Mueller on the shoulder.

  “You’re going to get these bastards, aren’t you?”

  “You bet,” he said.

  Within three days, the Senate passed a $40 billion emergency supplemental bill to aid in recovery and reconstruction efforts; October 7 saw the launching of Operation Enduring Freedom, in the form of strategic air strikes in Afghanistan; and then on October 26, 2001, President Bush signed the Patriot Act into law. The bill passed 98–1, as most of us knew how critical it was that our law enforcement officials have the tools necessary to fight the war on terrorism. By allowing us to more effectively pursue and prosecute those involved in terrorist activities, the Patriot Act helped to keep America safe.

  Just one year after the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Senate voted 77–23 to give President Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq. While this war would become highly controversial over the next several years, Saddam Hussein presented the rare situation where a regime change clearly needed to occur before another tragic attack was perpetrated on innocent
lives. That was the lesson of 9/11: you don’t react, you act. You deal with our enemies before they hit us, and in doing so, prevent the type of massive destruction we suffered on September 11.

  When the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq came before the Senate, we were being asked to decide some fundamental questions about the world in which we live. But more significantly, we were being asked to decide what kind of world we would choose for our children. Essentially, the question was this: Were we going to be safer if the United States led the effort to rid the world of Saddam Hussein? At the time, there was international agreement that he was amassing weapons of mass destruction. Nine days after al-Qaeda attacked us on our soil, Bush had promised Congress and the world that America would bring the war on terrorism to the terrorists wherever they may hide.

  I was frustrated when others, such as Russ Feingold, argued that diplomatic initiatives and weapons inspections must be given a chance to succeed, or that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the American people or our allies in Saddam’s backyard. All we had to do was look at recent history. Hussein had violated each and every one of the sixteen UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to Iraq. His armed forces continued to fire on American and coalition aircraft in the no-fly zone. Al-Qaeda terrorists continued to leave footprints on Iraqi soil and Hussein and his henchmen continued to make billions of dollars by exploiting the UN’s oil-for-food program. Iraq had answered a decade of UN demands with a decade of defiance. And Bush had given the UN and the international community a final chance to disarm Saddam Hussein through diplomatic means. But Bush also made it clear that if reason failed, force would prevail.