In a recent interview with the Washington Post, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says his strategy for the next two years is to make sure the Republican-controlled Congress doesn't scare Americans so much that they elect a Democrat for president in 2016. That means trying to sideline the likes of Ted Cruz and others who command the loyalty and enthusiasm of the GOP base.
"I don't want the American people to think that if they add a Republican president to a Republican Congress, that's going to be a scary outcome. I want the American people to be comfortable with the fact that the Republican House and Senate is a responsible, right-of-center, governing majority," the Kentucky Republican said in a broad interview just before Christmas in his Capitol office.
...
"There would be nothing frightening about adding a Republican president to that governing majority," McConnell said, explaining how he wants voters to view the party on the eve of the 2016 election.
Put aside for the moment what it tells you about the current GOP's extremism that the party's Senate leader recognizes that it frightens the American people.
Instead, focus on what McConnell and the Washington Post article left out of the mix: judges. It isn't hard to know what kind of judges we would get if Republicans controlled the White and House and the Senate. All we have to do is look to the last time that happened, during the George W. Bush presidency. At the Supreme Court, the GOP gave us John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who in turn gave us 5-4 rulings in cases like Citizens United and Hobby Lobby. Bush and the Republican Senate also filled the nation's appeals courts with right-wing ideologues like Janice Rogers Brown (who defended the ideology of the Lochner era in a 2012 opinion).
And this was before the Tea Party drove the party even further rightward than it was in the Bush era. Just imagine the impact that Tea Party judges with the Mike Lee and Ted Cruz stamp of approval would have on our laws, our rights, and our country.