McConnell Calls for Less Campaigning and More Leading from Obama

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday regarding the nation’s disappointment in the kind of leader President Obama said he was and the kind he’s turned out to be: 

“With President Obama officially on the campaign trail now, it’s hard not to be reminded of the kind of candidate he was the last time around, and to marvel at the difference. 

“At some point, the post-partisan healer who pledged to unite red and blue America became the divider-in-chief, a deeply divisive President who never seems to miss an opportunity to pit one group against another– who is now determined to win reelection not by appealing to Americans’ best instincts, but all too often to their worst. Even the New York Times editorial page wrote this morning that ‘the country is more divided than it was four years ago’ under this President. 

“Some have argued that the transformation we’ve witnessed proves that the President was a liberal ideologue all along, that the task of governing revealed his true instincts. And that may be true. 

“But there’s an even simpler explanation than that, and one that in some ways is even more disappointing. “It’s the idea that the President said what he needed to say to get elected then, and that he’ll say whatever he needs to say to get reelected now. It encapsulates why the American people are so skeptical of politicians.  

“The President’s policies may have disappointed. A healthcare bill that was supposed to lower costs is causing them to rise. A stimulus bill that was supposed to create jobs was better at generating punch lines. But one of the greatest disappointments of this presidency is the difference between the kind of leader this President said he was and the kind he’s turned out to be. 

‘Americans voted this President into office on a promise of bipartisan action. Orchestrating political show votes on student loans and giving Congress a post-it note checklist of legislative items to pass before the election isn’t what they expected. They expected us to work together. And they still do.’

Hear McConnells full comments here: