A Hitch For Mitch

By Miss Kubelik

We cats had a horrible thought today: What if Moscow Mitch doesn't care about losing the Senate?

Dude is almost 80. What if he thinks, "Heck, I've delivered 200 judges and three Supreme Court justices — my work here is done"?

It's possible, although when you consider that McConnell outpaces nearly everyone in the GOP when it comes to delightfully wielding nefarious power, maybe he does care after all.

Assuming he does, then, let's take a look at what the $100 million that the Democrats raked in this weekend might do to McConnell's Senate Super PAC's decisions. The principle of the Allocation of Scarce Resources is soon to come into play. Some GOP Senate candidate is going to have to lose the game of musical money.

McConnell might figure that if he lets go of Arizona (where Mark Kelly is pounding Martha McSally), North Carolina (where Cal Cunningham's ahead of Thom Tillis) — or even Iowa, which has Democrat Theresa Greenfield leading Joni Ernst by three — the Republicans can win them back in six years. A more interesting thought would be Mississippi, though. A poll just came out showing Democrat Mike Espy a point in front of the execrable Cindy Hyde-Smith, surprising as it may seem.

But you'd have to figure that Espy would be more moderate than other potential Democratic Senate winners, simply by virtue of the state he would represent. So Mitch wouldn't lose too much by cutting Hyde-Smith loose. On the other hand, Mitch wouldn't save much money either, because Mississippi is dirt-cheap to campaign in compared to, say, North Carolina or Arizona. See how all these factors can work together to drive Mitch crazy? So maybe Mississippi is not the first GOP Senate race to get the heave-ho.

All things considered, we'd have to predict Cory Gardner in Colorado. For practical as well as appearances' sake, Mitch won't want to ditch Arizona or Iowa or even Susan Collins in Maine — Trump might need that extra Electoral Vote in ME-02, and it would look bad to abandon those three states outright. But Colorado? Possibly. John Hickenlooper leads by five, the state is pretty pricey campaign-wise, and Trump is about to write it off soon. Mitch might even figure that Colorado is lost to the GOP for a generation.

It's not a lost cause for them, but when you factor in all the dicey situations in other states, we think that Gardner could be the first to go. We'll let you know if we guessed right. We cats PURR.