From Politico:
As Barack Obama prepares to nominate his first Supreme Court justice, conservative activists have three words for Senate Republicans: Lock and load.
While conservatives know that they can’t defeat Obama’s nominee without massive Democratic defections, they nevertheless want to see their senators come out with their guns blazing.
“Republicans in the House have gone a long way [toward satisfying conservatives] with votes on the stimulus,” says Gary Bauer, president of the anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage group American Values. “But when it comes to the Senate, there are still a lot of people not convinced that … what people expect is for them to carry the banner of our philosophy as boldly and with as much confidence as the other side does.”
“The other side does not agonize about whether they are going to give a Republican Supreme Court nominee a difficult time, they just do it.”
Also from Politico:
Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that the 59-40 majority Democrats hold in the Senate makes it it extremely difficult for the GOP to successfully filibuster, which would require 60 votes to break.
“Let’s be clear: Republicans don’t have the votes to filibuster a nominee, and that’s probably not going to happen in this case either,” Kyl said on “Fox News Sunday.”
If the Republicans cannot sustain a filibuster will they even force a cloture vote? I think you can be 100% certain that they will. All it takes is one senator to refuse to grant consent to move to a vote on confirmation to create a cloture vote. Someone like Jim Inhofe or Jim DeMint will surely object and force a cloture vote. Therefore, the Republicans will filibuster Obama’s nominee. The problem is that they won’t even come close to succeeding. There is no way to make their base happy on this. Well, actually, they would make the base happy if they unanimously voted to deny cloture. But that isn’t going to happen. There are going to try to score points with their base by merely complaining. That won’t work. But maybe they can dupe their base into giving them a bunch of money to complain.
I’m becoming just a bit cynical about a decent SCOTUS appointment when the President can’t even get his pick for OLC confirmed, even after blue dog Bayh and Lugar gave their stamp of approval.
Glen Greenwald on the OLC appointment:
And the final damnation:
.
Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who helped negotiate a compromise to avoid filibusters aimed at President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, also kept open the filibuster option against Obama’s nominee.
“We don’t want to have to read judges’ minds. So I think that’s the test — will they be an activist or not?” Nelson said. “I would hope that there wouldn’t be any circumstances that would be so extreme with any of the president’s nominees that the other side would feel the need to filibuster or that I might feel the need to filibuster in a case of extraordinary circumstances.”
Ben Nelson … VIDEO
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I have a question for people here. Why is it that Nelson can’t be defeated? Too big a war chest? And don’t give me that he fits Nebraska. Are you telling me a real economic populist couldn’t win in Nebraska? Obviously someone would likely have to be a bit culturally conservative to win there .. but seriously .. we can’t do better than Ben Nelson? Do you really think Nebraskans like a guy from the President’s party .. who is so willing to stab the President in the back repeatedly(metaphorically speaking of course)? .. Heck .. William Jennings Bryan was elected to Congress from Nebraska .. and he was the opposite of Nelson(meaning Bryan wasn’t a corporate whore)
During the Sixties, Nebraska had a reputation as a liberal if not radical state.
Not to mention Warren Buffet’s father represented Congress from the Omaha area .. Warren’s father was a Republican who judged everything by whether it impeded on a person’s liberty(meaning he would have hated the Dubya surveillance state I bet) … heck .. Kansas used to have that reputation as well .. I just wonder if the younger people and populist left both places because of the limited future there
I didn’t know that. Thanks for the info, Calvin.
Welcome!! I read it in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Buffett-American-Capitalist-Roger-Lowenstein/dp/0812979273/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&
amp;s=books&qid=1243400701&sr=1-2
Just FYI
This all seems very familiar to me, with the sides reversed. Nothing meaningful was done to stop Alito, but a lot of money was raised.
you assume that the goopers won’t remain unanimous on a scotus vote. wrong.
plus, i hope that no one thinks that nelson is going to be the only dem problem child.
i happen to believe that this is going to be horrendously contentious and with the help of the media (who just love a rating boost), this scotus appointment is going to be a bloody war!