McConnell bids to shelter GOP senators from Trump upheaval
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is wrestling with an unenviable, arguably impossible task this election year: protecting Senate Republicans from the political upheaval caused by Donald Trump's presidential candidacy.
In many ways Trump's polar opposite, the close-mouthed, deliberate, uncharismatic McConnell maneuvered into his dream job as majority leader just last year, and has been working every angle to ensure he hangs onto it even if a backlash against Trump provokes a Democratic tidal wave.
For McConnell, 74, avoiding that outcome means running a Senate schedule designed to assist a handful of vulnerable GOP incumbents in states such as Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Ohio.
The approach was markedly different from that of House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose hesitation before finally backing Trump provoked weeks of headlines on GOP infighting, and private grumbling from some Republicans who thought Ryan should have acted more like McConnell.
[...] McConnell has picked his moments on Trump.
In his new book McConnell recounts overcoming childhood polio with his mother's help, being ordered by his father to beat up the neighborhood bully, and locking down endorsements from the popular kids to become president of his high school class.