Heidi Alexander: “the Senate majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, will become the longest serving Senate Republican…”

“the Senate majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, will become the longest serving Senate Republican leader in history, surpassing former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. This is according to the Senate historical office. Today is Senator McConnell's 4,179th day as Senate Republican leader--a position he assumed on January 3, 2007, after Republicans lost control of both Chambers of Congress. I would like to take a few minutes to put Senator McConnell's leadership in perspective. That perspective begins in the year 1969. I was 29 years old and working in the Nixon White House. Senator Howard Baker, Jr., of Tennessee, said to me: ``You might want to get to know that smart, young legislative assistant for Marlow Cook.'' Marlow Cook was Kentucky's newly elected Republican Senator. That smart, young legislative assistant was 27-year-old Mitch McConnell. If one has known him for a long time, the evolution of Mitch McConnell's Senate leadership isn't hard to trace. To begin with, when he was 2 years old, the doctor said: ``Mitch has polio.'' It is hard to imagine today how terrifying those words were for parents then. McConnell remembers: It was 1944. There was a serious epidemic that year all over the country. And the disease was very unpredictable. First, you'd think you had the flu, and a couple of weeks later, some people would be completely normal and some of them would be in an iron lung or dead.…”