Earlier today, I was in on a teleconference with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. What follows are my notes, not quotes, from the teleconference.

Opening Statement

It looks like the Democrats are looking for a Goldilocks resolution that’s hot enough for their base, but cool enough for them to claim that they’re still for the troops. The problem is that none of these resolutions is “just right.” Their current policies are being driven by 2008 Democratic presidential politics.

After unanimously confirming Petraeus, the Democrats want to tell him that his mission would fail and want to tell him how to conduct his operation via congressional resolution. It’s absurd and counterproductive because their goal is to micro-manage this war to a premature conclusion.

Question and Answer Session

….

Q: Are the Democrats simply trying to do things that won’t pass? Will the surge be able to play it out?

A: There’s only one to impact it — to refuse to fund it. They should stop trying to discourage Petraeus and the troops and should try to cut off funds, if that’s what they want to do.

Q: Do you think we could end up in the SCOTUS over this?

A: Well, resolutions that don’t try to micromanage the war won’t.

Q: Joe Lieberman said yesterday that he might throw his lot in with the Republicans over the war. Would that have an impact?

A: Yes. We’d take over the Senate. But, let me say this about Joe: he made it clear last year that he intended to caucus with the Democrats, even though he is very estranged from the Democrats on post 9/11 strategy. So, I don’t expect to him to come over with us. He feels like he has earned the right to be an independent. Also, reports that say the Senate wouldn’t shift if he voted with us aren’t correct.

Q: So will next week be a key week?

A: Not really. The only way for them to cut off the war is to cut off the funding. Under the Constitution, Congress does not have the authority to micromanage a war, but they do have the authority to cut off funding. On the issue of funding the troops, almost every Republican would want to continue funding them and the Democrats are divided.

Q: Are we going to have comprehensive immigration reform?

A: We have been looking at that and the vast majority of Republicans are willing to go along with it if we’re serious about border security and don’t consider amnesty.

Q: How do you convince people you’re serious about border security?

A: I think we are getting results. The border isn’t secure, but it’s getting better. Also, the guestworker program shouldn’t be related to citizenship. They should be completely different issues.

Q from me: We would probably disagree about what “amnesty” is, so let me ask if there are any specific redline issues that would cause the Senate GOP to filibuster the bill? Citizenship for guest workers, social security for illegals, etc.?

A: Republicans are in a lot of different places on illegal immigration. I don’t know what we can or can’t filibuster on at this point.

Q: Could hate crimes legislation get through the Senate?

A: I don’t know what the lay of the land is on that yet.

Q: Do you think the Dems could get socialized medicine through?

A: I don’t think the American people would stand for a single payer system and I think there would be a vigorous effort made to defeat it.

At 3 PM today, I was on a teleconference with Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell. Here are my notes (not quotes) from the meeting:

Opening statement: “Civility does not mean capitulation.” We’re not going to give in on raising taxes. That’s not up for negotiation. Being on offense in the WOT isn’t up for negotiation. We will support the President’s proactive approach which has protected us from attack since 9/11. We do want to cooperate on lobbying reform though.

Q&A Session:

Q: Campaign finance reform? What about that? What about the guy who got in trouble for having a Bush bumper sticker?

A: We lost McCain-Feingold 5-4 and the deciding vote, Sandra Day O’Connor, is no longer on the court. He will try to chip away at this at the Court level. We will try to prevent further erosion of speech.

Q (from me): The majority of Republicans in the Senate voted against the illegal immigration bill that was passed last year and there is talk that it is being moved further to the left. What will the Republican stance be on the illegal immigration bill?

A: You probably don’t agree with this, but I support a comprehensive bill. I support a guest worker program. I am opposed to allowing any preferential treatment for people here illegally to being citizens. I don’t think a guest worker program and ultimately becoming a citizen necessarily have to be related.

Q: What about lobbying and earmark reform?

A: I think the key to earmark reform is transparency. Some earmarks are good — like a cancer hospital in my state. Some are bad though — like the Bridge to Nowhere or the old Lawrence Welk Museum.

Q: You’ve hired a blog liaison. There has been a good reaction to that.

A: The Senate is frustrating for whoever is in the Majority. Harry Reid will need to come up with 60 votes to do anything. Almost nothing will happen in the Senate that we don’t agree, too. We want to do more teleconferences to tell more people about how the Senate works and what we can do.

Hawkins’ Note: The Senator was limited on time, so we didn’t get to go too deeply into every issue people were interested in. However, there were three things worth noting.

First of all, I’m not so sure that McConnell can deliver when he says that the GOP is going to continue to support the President in the WOT. After all, we’ve already had Arlen Specter running off to Syria and Chuck Hagel saying Bush won’t get support for his “Alice in Wonderland” policy of sending more troops to Iraq. Frist was never able to enforce party discipline in the Senate and until I see otherwise, I’m not sure that McConnell can either, even if his heart is in the right place.

Secondly, deficit spending WAS NOT one of the things that McConnell said they were going to hang tough on. In particular, the fact that McConnell touted a piece of pork in his own state when he was asked about earmarks is a really bad sign if you’re looking for evidence that the GOP has gotten back to their roots on spending.

Last but not least, I got the impression from McConnell that the GOP is going to roll over like a French Poodle for the Democrats on illegal immigration. That’s really bad news because as McConnell said, they could stop the Dems in their tracks on this issue if they so desired.

Summary: Don’t get the wrong idea: McConnell didn’t come across as Lincoln Chafee, Jr. or anything and I thought it was impressive that he took the time to brief the blogosphere today, but there certainly wasn’t much for conservatives to get excited about in this teleconference.

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