Think we might have a hearing after all?
Republicans Should Confirm Merrick Garland ASAP.
I think the only calculus that matters on this issue is how it will affect Republican down-ballot races. It could be that more meaningless obstructionism is a ticket to individual Senators being re-elected. At a local level, that plays well to certain demographics, no matter what the national conversation is.
With the national conversation being so negative, the GOP’s real strategy for the next six months should be keeping their folks in the legislature.
Iowa fixture Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has, according to this poll, severely eroding support.
Swing state senators such as Kirk, Portman, Ayotte, and Toomey (right off the top of my head), may be in far more danger than Grassley.
I agree with the article. The GOP needs to find some way to reverse course and get this out of the way. “Cut our losses” should be their new strategy.
After making such a big deal out of holding the Seat open, it’d be pretty awkward for the GOP to walk the strategy back now. It’d be a loud admission that they either don’t think Trump has much chance of winning, or that if he wins they’d rather take an Obama pick over whomever Trump might want to nominate.
On the other hand, if they are going to do it, they’d best do it fast. In a few months, everything that happens will be interpreted in terms of the Prez election, and the idea that Trump’s own party is assuming he will lose will be much louder than now, when the de-facto end of the Primaries means there might be something of a (relative) lull in Presidential horse-race coverage.
This is already the case. There is no non-awkward course of action for Senate Republicans now. Really, there was no good path for them once McConnell planted his flag. Trump being the presumptive nominee, rather than merely the frontrunner in a terrible field, only confirms and underlines the stupidity of their self-imposed predicament.
But the argument is still correct: every day they don’t move toward confirmation only makes it worse for them.
Redstate seems to be as anti-Trump as National Review. Which means they’re taking themselves out of their party’s conversation and turning into laughingstocks.
Very principled of them, I’m sure. In a bizarro world somebody would care and not bring up how few principles they’ve had for the past few decades.
Yeah, they seem to think that Trump isn’t a True Conservative who would screw over the country as badly as the Democratic candidate, so why own it when he inevitably crashes and burns?
Things don’t look good for progressive Democrats either. Garland’s judicial record is one of almost complete pro-corporate decisions. If you care about getting money out of politics (Citizens United, Vellejo) and combating wealth inequality, don’t expect any movement with Garland on the court. And don’t expect Hillary, a huge corporate whore herself, to nominate anything but a pro-corporate type. Big money is likely to be coddled by the Supreme Court no matter what happens.
Garland will prolly hold the line on abortion, civil rights and might even revisit the decisions that have led Republicans to go hog-wild on voter suppression, which would be a good thing. But on money issues, he might as well be a Republican appointee.
If she loses her Senate seat she is welcome to join my Cuddle Party.
As a progressive Democrat, I would far prefer that Garland be confirmed to the court rather than anybody a Republican President would nominate. Sorry that I’m pragmatic; too bad, too sad for you.
Their only option would be to throw Trump under the bus, and say “Well, considering that we have no idea what sort of nomination a wild card like Donald Trump would make, we feel it is in the best interest of the country to consider Obama’s nominee.” But, yeah, they’ve really shit the bed here.
Since Ted Cruz was the first to insist that the Senate wouldn’t replace Scalia with an Obama appointee, McConnell could say that Cruz’s withdrawl from Presidential consideration means that the Senate doesn’t have to hold the door for him any more. They could blame the whole hangup on respect for Cruz’s Presidential run. Now that that’s over, they don’t have to wait.
It’s a dumb reason, but they could sell it.
Substituting one obvious bullshit rationale for another…I like it. 
Problem is, how do they sell that they lied in the first place when they said it was because Obama was a lame duck?
The usual three step process:
- Look their supporters straight in the eye
- Tell them an obvious lie
- Sit back and get re-elected by those supporters
Eh, that was a pretty transparent rationalization in the first place. I doubt they even need to bother explaining it away. I think even relatively uninformed voters knew the reason for not voting on Merrick was that the GOP thought they could get away with waiting out the clock for a future GOP Prez.
Ironically, a “lame duck” is a President whose successor has already been chosen, the idea being that everyone will ignore the outgoing Prez and just be interested in courting his successor. Obama wasn’t a lame duck when he nominated Merrick, and technically still isn’t.
But its the sense that Obama’s successor has basically already been decided on that’s spurring the Senate to reconsider confirming Merrick. So after saying they weren’t going to confirm Merrick because Obama is a lame duck when he wasn’t, the GOP is now considering doing so…because now Obama kind of is a lame duck.
If Clinton wins in November, should Obama/Clinton pull the Garland nomination and announce that Clinton will submit her own nominee once in office? I mean, it’s sort of a dick move to Garland, but I’m sure he was aware of this possibility when he signed on. Should this “principled” gamble that the GOP took on when they decided to obstruct him should have the consequence of having a more unpalatable (to them) nominee foisted upon them. Or, are the Democrats content with Garland anyway and fine with letting him through regardless?
Are you saying you’d like to get your hands on her seat?
If I were in Obama’s shoes, I’d pull the nomination. It was offered as a compromise. Since Republicans refused to compromise, then the offer is off the table and you get a new one.
Do I actually think that Obama will pull it? No, I don’t. Conciliation is his thing.
Seems built in, to me. Say it was because that’s what Cruz was saying, and they were going along with it.
Though I still say it would have been better to say it was a negotiating tactic to get Obama to pick a more conservative judge. They were playing political poker, and that involves some bluffing.
They seem to accept that a lot–both from Trump and from people who said they wouldn’t support him who now say they must support the nominee.