Ever since McConnell's hand-picked candidate, Trey Grayson, lost to Rand Paul in the 2010 GOP primary he has almost always done whatever the base wants. E.g., blocking Garland was a move to cover his right flank after seeing Boehner ousted by the Tea Party. It just paid off big.
When McConnell entered the Senate in the 1980s he carved a niche by doing what other Republicans would not, and blocking popular campaign finance reform bills. After leading one such filibuster, his colleagues “were finally beginning to know who I was,” he enthused in his memoir. 
McConnell’s efforts to block campaign finance reform bill spanned the 1980s and 1990s and earned him the nickname Darth Vader. They also helped him climb the ranks of GOP leadership and rise to NRSC chair. Along the way he embraced the Darth Vader tag. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
As the GOP Whip in 2005, McConnell led Senate Republicans’ efforts to go nuclear under President Bush. He had twenty years’ experience to Frist’s few. That effort was championed by some of the loudest critics of Democrats’ decision to go nuclear in 2013, like Hatch and Grassley.
And of course, in 2009 and 2010 McConnell twisted arms to keep Republicans from working with President Obama on the Affordable Care Act and declared that his top priority was to make Obama a “one-term president.”
McConnell’s brief sojourn as an “institutionalist” was from 2013-14 when it served his political interests and fed the narrative that he would restore Senate traditions if Republicans took back the majority. As soon as he had power, he broke all of those promises.
McConnell will always do whatever serves his own narrow interests and helps him gain power. Since Boehner was ousted, that has almost always meant hewing closely to the Republican base. Any analysis that suggests otherwise is contrary to history and his own extensive record.
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