MOST POWERFUL POLITICIAN THIS CENTURY?

Clearly, the most powerful politician this century is the Leader Of The Senate Republican Mitch McConnell.  He not only kept open the Supreme Court seat for a year on the chance that a Republican would win the Presidency, but he kept open quite a few other Judge positions on the Circuit Court of Appeals as well as lower courts.

McConnell realizes that the Supreme Court is the ultimate political body worth everything. He ended up being right and not only was he able to fill the Supreme Court position with Neil Gorsuch by eliminating the so-called nuclear option (60 vote filibuster rule) but an unusual number of other judgeships as well.

At the same time, he has kept the 60 vote filibuster rule intact for legislation in spite of urgings by the President and other Republicans* to abandon it because McConnell knows it is that rule that permitted him to pursue his scorched Earth policy against President Obama.

Curiously, many, many Republicans can't see the paramount political importance of judges, but only that he couldn't eliminate Obamacare.  Some blame him for not getting an immigration bill passed, but Republicans don't really want to solve the immigration problem but keep it open as an issue.  Time and again, immigration bills have either gone down to defeat because of lack of Republican votes in the House or from not bringing up an immigration bill in the House (e.g. The 2013 Immigration Bill that passed the Senate with 67 votes, i.e. with votes to spare).

Though I realize that Mitch McConnell is the most important politician of this young century, it should not be construed that I endorse him.  Far from it.  He is a very calculating, dirty politician.   Republicans should praise him rather than oppose him.

With the retirement of Justice Kennedy from the Supreme Court, Mcconnell will have the chance to fill another position opposed to abortion.

* https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/25/republicans-flee-from-mcconnell-in-2018-primaries-259615
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/14/17449746/mitch-mcconnell-gop-congress-senate-trump