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Looking at the 2008 election results-then Minority Leader McConell was the Republican Senator that year who avoided defeat by the narrowest margin. This isn't to say that the election was extremely narrow-but if one more Republican was going to lose McConnell may been that Senator.

What would the past eight years have looked like without McConnell?

There's of course the fact the the Democratic Party would have a 60-61 Majority throughout the first two years of the Obama Presidency. Even when Ted Kennedy dies-in theory the supermajority would hold. I don't know much about McConnell's 2008 opponent or how loyal he would have been to the party.


McConnell wa also a key figure along with Eric Cantor in shaping the course of the Republican Party in the 2009-2011 period. McConnell was among the people who endured a unified pose of opposition. He was by most accounts key in ensuring party discipline. I'm not sure his replacement as Minority Leader would have been as successful. Republicans might argue that Obama was so liberal that that level of unity was inevitable. But I suspect one way or another his absence would be felt.

The stimulus is still no larger than 800 billion regardless due the relative conservatives in Democratic Party. But the eventual compromise that shapes the final product in the Senate could be different.

The Affordable Care Act has enough votes to pass without reconciliation and is passed in a more traditional manner. There probably still wouldn't be enough votes for a public option.

There's no need to compromise with Scott Brown over Dodd-Frank because there will still be 60 Democratic Votes.

Then there's the question of the McCain and Kyl efforts to prevent the Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and the enactment of NEW START. If both of those can pass prior to the lame duck session-that's huge. The Republicans would have much less leverage with which to save the Bush Tax Cuts-which could mean the next two years could be entirely different. Ideally-the Democratic Party would raise the debt ceiling during that session-but at the time the administration still believed that compromise was possible and may not have believed the Republicans would be as insistent as they were in not raising ceiling without commensurate cuts. Still if the original Democratic plan passes there's at least 800 billion more in revenue to work with in any negotiations. Still from my own political perspective best case scenario is that the issue is removed from the table-the risk of default is too high otherwise. Better to have a situation where the worst thing divided ideological government can lead to is a shut down. But then-I'm a liberal and conservatives will obviously feel differently.

So McConnell's not the Minority Leader and there's a 60-61 Democratic Majority at least until 2011.

What happens?

I realize that this may be more of a chat topic than a topic for here. Apologies if that is the case.
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