(Cross-posted at Daily Kos, My Left Wing, and my blog)
Opinion polls, to me, are an imperfect science. At the same time, they can serve as a touchstone in evaluating options. The option I’m specifically concerned about right now is whether or not to adamantly oppose the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.
Here’s what I think the numbers tell us – make the jump.
Let me sumarrize my own personal opinion about Harriet Miers. She’s bad. She’s extremely bad. I think that she’s too much of a Bush cheerleader for anyone to reasonably expect that she won’t go after Roe v. Wade. I’m not a single issue voter, but when it comes to Supreme Court nominees, Roe is a dealbreaker for me.
I don’t know if the Administration has been distracted or how they managed to so thoroughly bungle the actual process of nominating Miers… Perhaps they took their base for granted and/or perhaps their arrogance has finally gotten the better of them in making the assumption that there would be no conservative opposition to Miers… Any way you analyze it, the end result is that the Administration is quickly trying to “fill in the gaps”, in code, for its conservative base. I think the information that is coming out is very telling and I do not think that Harriet Miers is some closet feminist who has been pulling the wool over the eyes of everyone around her for years with the expectation that she would eventually be nominated to the Supreme Court.
So having said that, let’s get to the numbers:
PRESIDENT BUSH — Overall Job Rating
Approve: 38%
Disapprove: 56%
Unsure: 6%Source: Pew Research Center, Oct. 6-10, 2005 via PollingReport.com
It’s about time. But what can this tell us about the Miers nomination? While I am opposed to Miers on a very fundamental level, the nagging question has always been that if the Miers nomination is withdrawn, would the next name be any better? I’m not a fortune-teller – but I think comparing Bush’s approval ratings among conservatives between last month and this month points at a possible strategy to compel the withdrawal of Miers’ nomination and the naming of a more palatable (relatively speaking – we know we’re not going to get a progressive, here) nominee.
PRESIDENT BUSH — Overall Job Rating
Republicans
- Approve, September 8-11, 2005 – 88%
- Approve, October 6-10, 2005 – 87%
Source: Pew Research Center Poll via CNN
As loud as conservatives are screaming about the Miers nomination, it doesn’t seem to have had a significant affect on his approval ratings with his base.
Yes, I know that this Administration claims to have little interest in opinion polls. I think recent actions by the Administration, however, give lie to that opinion. Take his repeated trips to the Gulf region as an example of his concern. Take also his repeated attempts to prop up support for the war in Iraq. What the administration says and what it does seems to tell two different stories. As always, I put stock in the actions, not the words.
Remember – not only does Bush have his legacy to consider – he also has his ability to push any agenda through at stake. Moreover, the biggest threat to Bush, as I see it, comes from within his own party. With midterm elections gearing up, fellow Republicans are very concerned about the overall sagging approval numbers. The pressure will be on Bush to make some move to staunch the flow and the pressure will come from his own party.
If he’s not losing support from his own base, then he’s losing it from somewhere in the middle. His strategists already know this. His party knows it, too. Democrats should gently start asking questions, based on Bush’s statement about Miers’ religious beliefs, as to her qualifications while feeding him ideas on the least objectionable person he could nominate. We may ultimately sacrifice by giving Bush a chance at better approval ratings, but given what’s at stake with the Supreme Court, I think that that’s an acceptable sacrifice to make.
Let’s not continue to prove this political cartoon:
Update [2005-10-13 20:15:24 by RenaRF]: In trying to respond to a comment on dKos, I came across this information – it regards the Bork nomination. When Bork was rejected he was replaced with Kennedy. This came from Reagan who was totally embattled over nominating O’Connor and failing to get an anti-Roe justice on the court. Interesting excerpts…
Bork had his supporters in the administration, most notably Attorney General Edwin Meese and Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds. But the White House was caught in the maelstrom of the Iran-Contra scandal at the time, and pragmatists like the new chief of staff Howard Baker and Counsel Arthur B. Culvahouse had reservations when it came to supporting what would clearly be a controversial nomination. Reagan, however, manifested a determination to make Bork the nominee, come what may. This would probably be his last chance to fundamentally change the makeup of the Supreme Court.
–snip–
As Bork’s September 15 confirmation hearing approached, liberal and conservative pressure groups spent an unprecedented $20 million in campaigns to either demonize or praise the candidate. The AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause, the NAACP and the National Organization of Women was just a few of the organizations who hurled themselves into the fray in order to prevent Bork’s ascension to the highest court in the land.
–snip–
They argued that the Ninth Amendment, which states that the “enumeration . . . of certain rights” in the Constitution “shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” justified judicial activism. In other words, the Constitution acknowledged unidentified rights and it was up to the Supreme Court to define and defend them in keeping with the premise that Americans should live in a free society where all people were equally protected under the law. Bork’s opinions and writings, said his critics, revealed a man who posed a serious threat to basic principles of social justice.
Source: The Bork Nomination.
I’ll just make the assumption, given the no-comments thing, that everyone agrees. 😉
Yup! Great job Rena, I’ll step away now so the crickets can resume their chirping. 😀
I think this is the bottom line. Conservatives know what they’re getting with Meirs. They’re getting a religious conservative with just enough “liberal” credentials to be justified as a replacement for O’Connor. They’re getting someone who will uphold all of the stealth restrictions on abortion they’ve been slipping into law across the country, who will uphold gay marriage bans, and who will rule with Scalia on the topic of religion in government.
And that’s all they want.
If the Meirs nomination succeeds despite the outcry, this should be a sign that we should be very, very worried. It means that Dobson and his theocratic brethren have succeeded in taking absolute control of the Republican party, and that their cronies in the DFL, DLC, and NDN will soon be redoubling their efforts. It also means that the plutocrats and ordinary fascists will start looking for another party to back their control efforts.
On the other hand, if the Meirs nomination fails in a way that makes the Republican Congress look good, this can and should be used to start eliminating the Republican wannabes in the Democratic party. Because if it does fail, because of Reid’s ill-considered memo, it will be used against the Democrats, and it will spell doom in 2006.
…over Miers. The “intellectual” rightwingers has a problem with Miers because they don’t think she has the legal acumen or gravitas for the job (and I agree, though I’m more concerned about her politics). You see, the “intellectual” rightwingers believe in their natural right to rule, but they need some obfuscatory “scholarship” to back it up. Which is why they love Scalia so much. He knows how to conceal his ideology behind his phraseology. Putting someone on the Supreme Court like Miers – who is not only not a member of hoi oligoi but also has no intellectual credentials – sticks in their craw. To them, she’s sort of, well, trailer trash.
it’s very amusing, in a morbid way, to watch the Ivy League second string get their undies in a bunch over a SMU grad getting the nod. There is as much misplaced snobbery as there is misogyny going on here.
But most surprisingly, there is a lack of trust for the Bush Crime Family. Yet, they have overseen the destruction of all rivals to Jeb, except for Guiliani (notably not revived with an assignment on the Gulf Coast), and the perennielly undead Senator from Arizona (‘Imus, how are ya this morning?’).
From Ann Coulter’s take on Miers:
Perhaps we can instead apply this generally “good rule of thumb” to mAnn herself and stop there? But let’s have her explain some more about why the the best way to protect all those NASCAR-lovin’ folks that mAnn cares most about from the elites is, in fact, to put the elites in charge:
Someday historians will write volumes about early 21st-century rightwing pseudopopulism…and I don’t mean What’s the Matter With Kansas?. Tom Frank sees the cynicism in it, but sometimes he misses all the layers of pathology, the brave sense of self-sacrifice with which mAnn describes those poor conservatives fated to attend Ivy League schools and do battle with the liberal elite mano a mano. Thank goodness Mr. and Mrs. Average Bush Voter have folks like mAnn and the Club for Growth to make sure that the Ivy League Elite don’t run roughshod over this country!
Heck, mAnn’s almost like John Wayne in the last shot from The Searchers, a man (?) willing to go do anything to protect average folks both from the evils that lurk in the world, and from the dehumanizing methods it takes to defeat those evils. Except I don’t remember John Wayne using the word “trope.”
I think the “intellectual” wing of the movement is about to discover that it’s riding a tiger. The theocrats and neocons are pleased with Meirs, and that’s all that matters to them. And once she’s on the court, the damage is done. Even if the Republicans go away politically, having a Supreme Court packed with ideological hacks mean they can stalemate any attempts to repair the damage they’ve done until they can swing things around their way again.
I’m with you.
And I think now is the time for the Dems to prove which strategy works best.
Let Reid and the centrists ocntinue to make the official Democratic position: The Republicans will self destruct, and we won’t do a damn thing, thereby proving their adept leadership and positioning us as the party of “um, I dunno — we support obviously bad candidates for political reasons. We don’t need no steekin high ground”.
Let the actual Democrats say what everyone is thinking (the #1 smartest political move a politician can make — tell you how smart you are by agreeing with what seems obvious to you). Let them dismiss consideration of Miers with contempt, and dare the Republicans to accept an unqualified crony.
In other words, do what Dems haven’t done for 8 years — LEAD. Take the pole position on denouncing Harriet Miers. The Repubs have groaned and complained, but that’s only Dem-level opposition. They haven’t actually said no yet. We should. Then when it all falls apart, it really all falls apart for the Repubs, and we look like we know what we’re doing.
The alternative is to let the Repubs control the spin, and defeat Miers, and use our support of her to blunt our opposition of everything else — by damaging our credibility while the conservatives boost theirs by dumping on a failing pres — exactly what RenaRF is suggesting the Dems do.
Really? Cause then I’m with you. But I read RenaRF’s writing differently–I thought she was calling for an insurgency of real Democrats to question and oppose Miers, rather than wring their hands as shown in the cartoon.
Ok, ok. I had more coffee and re-read both things. We’re all in agreement.
Um, unless that’s a bad thing now. In which case, I mildly disagree with Yaright’s hairstyle today. 🙂
In matters of public policy, lobbyists for industry groups have created a new product, doubt and uncertainty, to undermine regulation. In other words, to get around a solid, scientific findings with implications for say, drug or environmental policy, lobbyists simply conduct their own study with conclusions that manufacture doubt about the study. This has a neutering effect that blocks or stalls needed regulation for the public good.
I am not convinced that there’s any correlation between Bush’s poll numbers and his nomination for Supreme Court Justice. In terms of the general public, we are all mired in FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) intentionally manufactured by our politicians. This includes rumors, missing or unavailable records, or criteria involving religious beliefs. The process by which we make decisions — solid fact-finding, has been subverted by red herrings and unreliable testimony designed to manufacture FUD. Both parties are to blame. In such a climate, I would expect the public reaction to be effectively neutered.
says it all, mostly learn to listen, instead of just hearing…. ; )
Democrats should gently start asking questions, based on Bush’s statement about Miers’ religious beliefs, as to her qualifications while feeding him ideas on the least objectionable person he could nominate. We may ultimately sacrifice by giving Bush a chance at better approval ratings, but given what’s at stake with the Supreme Court, I think that that’s an acceptable sacrifice to make.
That’s my position in a nutshell. Forget the political advantage calculation. Miers should be opposed because SHE SHOULD BE OPPOSED. That a strong Democratic questioning and then opposition may also show Americans that yes, Democrats have a spine, and yes, we can lead this country again, is icing on the cake, but the cake is what’s important.
Or as I tried to put it yesterday in catnip’s story, Senate Democrats should just do their jobs.