Jeffrey Blehar of National Review Online ponders Sen. Mitch McConnell’s impact on conservative public policy.

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky announced last Thursday that he would be retiring from the U.S. Senate after seven terms in office. The decision was entirely expected. McConnell’s health has been slipping for years, as was clear when he suffered two rather alarming “senior moments” in front of the cameras back in the summer of 2023; he stepped down as Senate majority leader after the 2024 midterms in recognition of this. The only question was whether he would fill out the remainder of his term. He has announced that he will but that then it’s time for him to go.

He will be dearly missed. Mitch McConnell is, without exaggeration, one of the three most important Republican politicians of the last half century — the other two are Reagan and, for good or ill, Donald Trump — and the most effective leader Senate Republicans have ever seen, full stop. I find it depressing that this is not a universally shared sentiment among conservatives. I am well aware of the inexplicable loathing with which the MAGA rank and file regard McConnell, and all I can say in response to it is that you people have no earthly idea how lucky you were to have had this man in charge of the Senate Republicans for the last 18 years. You don’t know how good you had it.

No Republican ever herded cats better than Mitch McConnell. Nobody has ever more skillfully united a conference, particularly one that was once — in an era before Trump, before the memories of many readers, I suspect — notoriously fractious and ill disciplined. When Barack Obama swept into office in 2008 with control of the House and a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate, it looked like nothing would stop the government from assuming control over the American health-care sector with Obamacare. … The way McConnell singlehandedly helped the GOP — in the extreme minority and seemingly powerless — weather the onslaught and rally to fight back during that period defines his virtues.