Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his plans to exit his leadership position by November on Wednesday.

We can praise the good things he did, breathe a sigh of relief to that he had the good sense to get out before he became another Dianne Feinstein, and criticize him later.

The important thing is who will replace him in a year when President Trump is expected to retake the White House.

According to Politico, three names have emerged:

The Kentucky Republican isn’t stepping aside until November, but three potential heirs have long loomed large in the Hill’s calculus. Somewhat confusingly, all three are white men named John: Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), former whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) and GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

For the moment, very few GOP senators are declaring their preferred McConnell successor. Asked which of the “three Johns” he favors to become the next Republican leader, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) spoke for many on Wednesday by chuckling and replying only, “good question.”

I like Barrasso, and the other two are a mix of pluses and minuses.

But one name being bruited about, on Twitter and among the punditocracy, is not on that list but generating a lot of interest is ... Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Hell, yeah.

What a perfect gift he would be for getting the Republicans back on track -- and in the majority, too.

Paul is famous for challenging COVID government lies and wanting to put Dr. Anthony Fauci in jail for lying to Congress. That's going to resonate with the GOP party faithful.

He's also the real deal on fiscal discipline, demanding an end to wasteful government spending, and even putting out lists at the end of the year of the worst violators.

He hates inflation and has demanded an audit of the Federal Reserve, which has been printing up money to finance Democrats' gargantuan (and illegal) spendathons, the number one driver of inflation.

He's called for U.S. aid to Ukraine to be audited, something badly needed, now that even a Ukrainian presidential aide admitted that Ukrainian officials are "stealing like there's no tomorrow." 

He's called for audits of the top three military services, which is a surefire way of exposing swamp and consultant corruption, and badly overdue. Maybe he will uncover why we keep losing wars in that process.

He's lately been trying to block sales of F-16s to Turkey, or rather, our friends the Turks, whose regime is the world's most worthless NATO ally and a nasty dictatorship and which consistently supports terrorist thugs like Hamas, and Hezb'allah, as well as Russia. Good man, there.

He was a top braking agent of the monstrous $95 billion aid package that would have normalized the border surge with a daily intake of 4,999 illegals to be let into the country, and he was vocal about this outrage. He shut that crap down.

He insists on founding principles of freedom, such as free speech, transparency and living within one's means, all things in short supply in the Age of Biden. He's a full libertarian with a pro-life orientation, same as Argentina's President Javier Milei. 

He's just not a vocal fireworks-type guy like either Milei or President Trump, which might make him a good candidate for forging bipartisan agreements when that's what's needed in the Senate. Paul never compromises on his principles, though, and his principles are excellent.

He's even attracted an endorsement from an unexpected quarter -- independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 

According to Mediaite:

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as Senate minority leader on Wednesday after it was announced that McConnell would step down from the position in November.

“Part of public service is about knowing when to usher in a new generation,” reacted Kennedy, who challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, before announcing his run as an independent last year. “It’s time to promote leaders in Washington, DC who won’t kowtow to the military contractors or push us deeper into foreign conflicts.”

Kennedy concluded, “We need representation who will prioritize American wellness over all else. I believe @RandPaul would be an incredible successor. He’s shown great judgment and has the grit to put hardworking Americans first.”

Everything he said is true. Nice!

Kennedy also retains many of these qualities, having challenged the COVID orthodoxy and other government lies and failures, and for that reason, is surging in the polls mostly from the left-side. Biden and his minions fear his candidacy.

Which kind of tells us that there is a such thing as a man of the hour, and the man of the hour right now is the fiscally disciplined, pro-free speech, pro-transparency libertarian. Who better, really, for revitalizing the republic from the Senate than Rand Paul? We see this trend surging in Argentina with the election of Milei, we see the rise of Kennedy from the left in the U.S, we see that the Republicans have changed their constantly losing party leader, and now we now hear Paul's name mentioned for the Senate. 

Assuming Paul would want the job, when Mitch McConnell retires in November, a lot of us hope the next leader to emerge for the GOP Senate leadership will be a fiery principled senator named Rand Paul.

Image: Twitter screen shot