“This is a critical election, in my view, about whether we want to continue to go down this European path, or whether we want to recapture the growth rates and the greatness we’ve had most of our history,” McConnell told POLITICO during an extensive interview in his Capitol office overlooking the National Mall. Until 2017, Republicans are “going to make what progress we can for the country in spite of this far-left administration with which, frankly, most of my members and myself have very little in common.”

Nine months after claiming his long-sought prize of Republican majority leader, the cagey McConnell is entering what could be a decisive three-month stretch with lots of headaches: defusing the conflict over Planned Parenthood and government funding, figuring out a long-term deal on infrastructure, raising the debt ceiling and managing four Republican colleagues running for president with their own priorities — all while dealing with the Senate’s filibuster rules and languid pace.

But he also enjoys advantages his House counterpart John Boehner can only wish for — starting with a Republican conference that, with the notable exception of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), almost uniformly has his back. McConnell appears to have sufficient support to beat back Cruz’s plans to force a government-shutdown showdown over Planned Parenthood funding, no matter what insults the Texan hurls.

“He’s calm. And he’s going to have a lot to deal with. And he does not get emotional,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said of McConnell. “There’s going to be plenty that someone else will get emotional about; he won’t.”

McConnell’s performance could shape the reelection chances of a host of Republican incumbents on the ballot next year. The GOP is defending 24 seats it now holds, many in states that Obama won in 2012 and tend to vote Democratic in presidential years.

It’s up to McConnell to make sure incumbent GOP senators like Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania aren’t tarred with another shutdown and have some accomplishments to point to.

“All these incumbents are strong. In 2010, we won a lot of seats in some pretty tough states. And now they’re up with a higher turnout and a more challenging situation,” McConnell said. “I’m not going to deny that this is a challenging landscape. But I think we’ve got a good chance to hold the Senate.”

After raising expectations with promises to overhaul how the Senate runs, McConnell is coming to grips with the limitations of a filibuster-shy majority and a Democratic president he views as a nonexistent negotiating partner. He’s experienced the highs of passing Trade Promotion Authority and Senate approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, and the lows of being unable to override a veto of Keystone and overseeing a brief lapse of PATRIOT Act provisions.

And though McConnell portrays the election as a chance to turn the page on Obama, he can’t help but dish out zingers at the man with whom he may well need to strike a budgetary deal in the coming weeks.

Asked about the improving economy, McConnell scoffed: Business leaders tell him they have “a hard time finding people to do the work because they’re doing too good with food stamps, Social Security and all the rest.” Rather than cut deals like centrist Democrats of the past, he said, Obama wants to “Europeanize America” with a diet of “massive debt, high taxes on the most successful people, over-regulation.”

Democrats have their own critiques of McConnell. They say that he’s so secretive that some members of his leadership team have to badger Senate Democrats for information about the Senate’s daily state of play. And then there are the breakdowns this year between Boehner and McConnell on the PATRIOT Act, funding the Department of Homeland Security and opposing the Iran nuclear deal, in which the two chambers took polar opposite approaches at the last minute.

“Does this sound like Boehner and McConnell have one another’s telephone numbers, that they are talking to one another? To me, it’s disarray,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

McConnell declined to discuss his relationship with Boehner.

But as Boehner grapples with his own job security amid constant threats from the right, McConnell can at least focus on a few discrete policy targets without having to worry about a coup.

He wants to force Democrats to again express support for the Iran nuclear agreement and to vote against a bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks. And McConnell plans to pursue several smaller-bore initiatives: infrastructure funding, cybersecurity reform, a chemical safety bill and other items that are substantive but unlikely to electrify the public.

“None of them by themselves fundamentally change the country. But they’re all important,” McConnell said.

This is not what the conservative base wants to hear. Led by Cruz, the House Freedom Caucus and conservative media figures like Mark Levin and Erick Erickson, the party’s right flank is agitating for a major showdown over funding Planned Parenthood, not piecemeal legislation that can actually pass the Senate. Cruz says McConnell’s leadership differs little from Harry Reid’s, a serious charge considering the level of loathing Reid inspires within the GOP.

In truth, McConnell has run the Senate differently than Reid did. The Republican leader has restricted the confirmation of nominees, particularly for the courts, to the point of a near-standstill. He also pushed through trade legislation that Reid blocked as majority leader. But while McConnell doesn’t rule out going after Obama’s labor, environmental and foreign policy initiatives through the budget process, he’s clearly not interested in the kind of confrontation that some conservatives want.

“Shutting down the government, it doesn’t defund Planned Parenthood any more than shutting down the government two years ago would have defunded Obamacare,” McConnell said.

However, McConnell is acutely aware of the tide of conservative anger outside the Beltway, his associates say. They estimate the Senate will have to take at least one more vote on defunding Planned Parenthood to prove it can’t be done, and McConnell is prioritizing the 20-week abortion measure, which polls well and has strong GOP support.

Those efforts to mollify the party’s right reflect the reality of McConnell’s situation. Even if McConnell were to bow to conservatives and gut the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold, Obama still has 16 more months in the White House to veto whatever Republicans send over.

But after that, McConnell says, anything’s possible.

“The concrete part of [Obama’s] agenda was when he controlled the Congress with big majorities the first two years,” McConnell said. “The rest of it is very much open to being changed by a new president with a different point of view. Just like that.”