Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

"On most issues, I would like to see a right-of-center result," McConnell is quoted as saying in Congressional Quarterly's "Politics in America" 2008 edition. "But I've also been in legislative politics long enough to know that rarely do you get exactly what you want. Our whole process is about accepting less than what you want in order to advance the ball."

Iraq

The minority leader is a strong supporter of the war in Iraq. He supported giving George W. Bush the authority to wage the war in 2002, backed the 2007 troop surge and has consistently blocked measures to rescind the president's authority to use force. "If the Senate doesn't support the mission in Iraq, it has only one option, and that's to decide whether or not to fund that mission," McConnell said.

He has also continued to push measures that would fund the war without setting a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops, calling a timeline a "surrender deadline."

Campaign Finance

McConnell considers himself a "First Amendment hawk." In 2006, he opposed his party and voted against a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, saying it was a violation of freedom of speech. The amendment failed by one vote. He also fought against the rewriting of campaign finance laws because of free speech objections. For 15 years, McConnell fought campaign finance reform, filibustering proposed reforms more than 20 times. After the McCain-Feingold bill was enacted in 2002, he assembled a team to fight the law in the Supreme Court and lost.

McConnell's has been criticized for vigorously fighting reform because he is one of the most prolific fundraisers in Washington and Kentucky. In March 2007, he held a $2.1 million fundraising dinner with President Bush, the largest political fundraiser in the state's history. But McConnell defends his views as principled. "I think freedom of political speech is the most important speech guaranteed by the First Amendment," McConnell argues.

The Economy

When the $700 billion bank bailout bill failed to pass the House the first time in October 2008, McConnell teamed with his counterpart on the Democratic side, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), to craft a deal. They attached the bailout to an unrelated $100 billion package of tax-credit extensions and shepherded the bill through the Senate. House Republicans and Democrats both signed onto the new version of the bill and it passed comfortably. "This is one of the finer moments in the Senate," McConnell said.

Health-Care Reform

After President Obama made overhauling the nation's health system a top priority, McConnell became a leader in promoting a more conservative health-care reform plan.

Like many Republicans, McConnell acknowledged the need for reform, but opposed the government-run health insurance option favored by Democrats. "Americans suspect that what's being sold as a government 'option' would soon become the only option," he said from the Senate floor in June 2009.

McConnell also proposed putting limits on comparative effectiveness research, which he feared could be used to ration treatments. McConnell joined Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) to introduce the Preserving Access to Targeted, Individualized and Effective New Treatments and Services (PATIENTS) Act of 2009, to forbid the government from dictating the types of treatments doctors could offer patients.

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