Per Arlen Spector (I still can’t understand why the guy is getting skewered for stating the simple reality), any pro-life nominees for the SCOTUS will create a hell of a battle in the Senate; you might even see Strom Thurmond’s filibuster record broken. It will make Clarence Thomas’ confirmation look like a debutante party. I think the partisan acrimony such a battle would create might not be seen as worth the effort; though it’s a tough call with Bush, as he seems to be rather cavalier in dismissing opposing viewpoints, and might not care if there’s a shitstorm or not. Others in the party might persuade him, however, that while the issue is a great political football, going for a touchdown might not be advisable. After all, if abortion goes away, the GOP loses one of its most reliable wedge issues, so the real prospect of overturning Roe v. Wade may be a “careful what you wish for” scenerio among cooler heads.
There is also something people should remember and that is judges tend to take their jobs seriously. There have been many Supreme Court judges who are very politically liberal or politically conservative that still continue to rule in ways that simply confound the people who appointed them. Believe it or not most judges take the law very seriously and USSC Justices tend to vote on what they truly see the Constitution as meaning.
Furthermore the USSC also gives great weight to the courts that came before them and will only very rarely overturn past decisions.
Rashak
Get a copy of the November 22 Newsweek Magazine if you can. They have a section called “The Folklore of Election 04”. Of the so called Moral values voters which was 22% of the electorate, 42% responded that the Iraq war was the most important moral issue, compared to 13% who chose abortion & 10% who chose gay marriage. (a little different than you read around here) The study was done by the Center for American Progress, according to Newsweek a left leaning think tank. Someone a few post ago made a good point that a lot of people may personally be pro-life but do not want Roe v. Wade overturned.
My own opinion is the right to an abortion is not a constitutional issue and should have never gone to SCOTUS - ever (unless amended).
But that being worth less then the electrons that display it, I have to say that Bush has no way of making law, though he has some clout in suggesting it.
Can W help in making it illegal, I don’t really see it, I do see maybe some sensiable restrictions like no partial birth abortion, or D&E as it is sometimes known.
Well there where still 34% against it ! A vocal minorty… but still vocal.
Esquimalt… thanks for the info… still those 13% and others that didn’t consider Iraq a moral issue… are still a very big group. In heavily split elections… they tip the balance too much.
Wouldn’t Bush Jr’s failure to abolish abortion signal ANYTHING to pro-lifers that consider it an election issue to change their minds ? I know Bush will make appearances of his trying to change things… but not much. At some point some of them will call the bluff ? Or its just “Bush thinks like me and I like that” ?
I do not think that if Roe stands it will hurt Republicans. If it stands, it’s because of judicial obduracy or because Bush “tried” but not especially hard, because he didn’t have his heart in it. Well, the same could be said of just about any Republican President – Bush pere, maybe even Reagan if you got down to it. Reagan is revered in pro-life circles despite never having gotten much of their agenda accomplished, and GHWB suffered Republican defection over taxes, but not over his ‘wimpy’/ineffectual positions/actions on abortion.
Conservatives don’t have any problem understanding or believing that their opponents exist and are numerous and strong (I don’t want to re-open the thread on who’s more condescending, but I’ve stated there my theory that liberals are more . . . puzzled by the existence of conservative belief than vice versa). So, if the pro-abortion ‘consensus’ continues for four more years . . . it’s just another instance of bad triumphing (temporarily) over good, for them.
Besides (and don’t think this crude assessment isn’t in the minds of GOP strategists when they decide just how much lip-service to pay to the pro-life base): Where else are the pro-lifers going to go?
Don’t want to hijack my own thread… but I agree that liberals are more puzzled.
As for the Religious Right… will it be content with just having Bush as POTUS ? Won’t they want something in exchange besides self gratification of being in the “ruling” party ?
You’re not getting it.
Bush can’t abolish abortion. The President does not have that kind of power. Why would the pro-life voter stop voting for him for not doing something he does not have the ability to do?
The best pro-lifers can hope for is that Bush nominates strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court to replace Rehnquist (and whoever else retires). And any candidate - any candidate, regardless of any other circumstance - who liberals think might vote to overturn Roe v. Wade is going to be resisted by the Democrats by any means, fair or foul, to the death and beyond. They will do anything - anything - to stop him. They will find some liar like Anita Hill to accuse him of something. They will disseminate lies about him as they did with Bork. He will be subjected to a campaign of character assassination the likes of which you and I have never seen. Think Moveon.org and Swift Boat Veterans, lightly stirred together and multiplied by fifty, and funded by a dozen George Soros. You think the 2004 campaign was dirty? You ain’t seen nothing, once the radfems of both genders get fired up.
The Dems are chafing for some kind of revenge. They are going to grab for it, first chance they get.
Imagine if Bush nominated John Ashcroft for the Supreme Court. Mulitiply that by a couple of dozen, and you are starting to get warm.
Regards,
Shodan
Multiple answers:
(1) It will be content to be in power because it sees this election as a ratification/vindication of moral values. Please let’s don’t debate if that is really true or what “moral values” means. All I can tell you is that they believe the country had a chance to think for four years about whether they had “botched” the previous election, and that they decided, by a larger margin than before, that they wanted to go with the guy who was “more morally sound.” Kerry helped make this assumption more plausible by being very close to Bush on lots of issues where he could have drawn a distinction (Iraq comes to mind).
(2) There will be some ultimately-pointless but showy victories (allowing “faith based agencies” to get involved in administering the welfare state) that some religious conservatives will be very happy about.
(3) Any lack of progress on the religious conservative agenda (however that may be defined) will be defended and rationalized by the Administration as being the result of Democratic obstructionism and foot-dragging. This excuse will be partly bogus (they do have a big majority), partly true in the latter years of the term.
(4) Again, they’ll like it or lump it because – where are they going to go? The base is the base because they can’t imagine being Dems. Also, conservatives are more disposed, to generalize, to be deferential toward authority. If the Party leadership tells them that they done their best but couldn’t deliver much of the agenda – I suspect Republican stalwarts are more apt to take them at their word than would be Dems.