Explain this one to me political scientists (update)

New Yorker:  Let's Talk.  The move to reform the filibuster
Ezra Klein has a new piece discussing the history of the filibuster and possible reform efforts.  One interesting statistic to show how broken the system has become  "From 1917 to 1970, the majority sought cloture fifty-eight times. Since the start of President Obama’s first term, it has sought cloture more than two hundred and fifty times."

As one extreme example of how ludicrous the R's behavior has become Klein cites Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell filibustering his own debt ceiling proposal (see here).

Toward the end of the article Klein quotes Thomas Mann of the Brooking's Institution.  Mann "worries that Democrats will reform the filibuster in a way that will infuriate Republicans but will do little to change the everyday workings of the Senate, leading to less cooperation and more gridlock than exists right now "You won't have fixed the Senate, but you will have further poisoned the environment," he says.  For the Democrats' short term interests, insufficient reform could be worse than no reform at all, since angry Republicans would use every procedural trick at their disposal to block the President's agenda."

As I discussed here the typical mean voter model has difficulty explaining McConnell's behavior.  Perhaps a different model would have voters make their choice of party based on that parties success in passing bills when they are in the majority.  Hence the minority party always has an incentive to prevent any bills for passing.  I really don't think that is how voters behave but frankly I don't have a better explanation for McConnell's behavior.