OXON HILL, Md. - Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky urged his party to keep up its fight against President Obama’s signature health care law and ignore naysayers who believe it cannot be done during a muscular speech here on Friday linking the effort to his party’s salvation.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, Mr. McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, likened the party’s resistance to “Obamacare†to his own successful effort to eradicate the campaign finance law known as McCain-Feingold. “We gave it everything we had,’’ he said, adding, “We can’t stand by and look at the assault on liberty and do nothing.’’
Pointing to a stack of paper more than six feet tall that he said was the contents of the new health care law, he said, “If there was ever a symbol of what we’re fighting against, this tower, right here, is it.â€
The Supreme Court upheld most of the health law last summer, which Mr. cConnell acknowledged to be a setback, though he said he had just as many losses in his fight against the campaign finance law, which the court struck down in 2010.
Over all, though, Mr. McConnell, of Kentucky, made it clear he had heard enough about his party’s problems.
“I’m a little tired of the hand-wringing - conservatives were never meant to be the party of the crybaby caucus,’’ he said.
The solution, he said, was simple: “If you get your tail whipped, you don’t whine about it - you stand up and you punch back.â€
