G.O.P. Weighs Political Price of Court Fight

[underpants]

Source: NY Times

In the aftermath of the polarized health care debate, some Republican leaders said they were reluctant to give Democrats further ammunition to portray them as knee-jerk obstructionists. But they also want to harness the populist anger at Mr. Obama’s policies and are wary of alienating their base when they need it most.

Likewise, some conservatives who led the fight against Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation last year said they should learn from mistakes made then, like making grand claims about raising vast sums of money only to find that Republican senators were not as committed to an all-out battle.

The court vacancy was barely raised on Saturday at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, where hundreds of party activists met to strategize for the midterm election campaign. The relative silence on the issue underscored the sensitivity as Republicans decided how to respond to the nomination.

But Republicans could accomplish goals short of actually denying Mr. Obama his choice. A confirmation fight could take up valuable Senate time and complicate the rest of Mr. Obama’s legislative agenda. A top Republican lawmaker said it might give Republicans leverage to negotiate a compromise over regulation of financial markets, so Democrats could clear the decks to take up the nomination this summer.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/us/politics/11supreme.html?hpw

---

Some conservatives argued that they had already framed Mr. Obama’s choice. “One clear lesson from the Sotomayor process,” said M. Edward Whelan III, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, “is the political appeal of the traditional understanding of the judicial role, as Sotomayor tried to sound like a judicial conservative in her confirmation hearing.”

[rpannier]

1. No name has been mentioned and they're already preparing to oppose it. I stand by what I said before

If Obama nominated the Ghost of Reagan they'd oppose it

[NewJeffCT]

2. They'd oppose Orrin Hatch

if Obama nominated Orrin Hatch - the RW tool & one of the senate minority leaders on the judiciary committee over the years.

[rpannier]

5. Well...You have to remember that Hatch

1. Co-sponsored the Federal Gov't Health Care Bill for Children with Ted Kennedy in the 90's
2. He suggested Ginsburg to Clinton
3. He was a friend of Ted Kennedy's

The man is practically a Communist

[shotten99]

6. I can't help but laugh, but I think you're exactly correct.

[NewJeffCT]

12. And, a few years ago, when Bush was president

Hatch called Ginsburg the most liberal justice in history - conveniently forgetting Earl Warren, William Brennan & Thurgood Marshall, among others.

[rpannier]

22. Yes, but...

Warren, Brennan and Marshall were pre-9/11

9/11 changed everything...including history

[Froward69]

13. the gop would oppose robert bork!!!

if Obama nominated him. it does not matter whom is nominated... what matters is: OBAMA nominated them.

[NewJeffCT]

16. Just look at the paper trail that Jesus Chist fellow left

If he got nominated... obviously, he was all about class warfare & socialism by saying things like, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” or "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"

[underpants]

4. They have not only painted themselves into a corner but ....

they also are letting the fringe element pick the color.

[No Elephants]

3. Bluster, bloviation, preening, posturing. In sum, raise the curtain. It's time for kabuki theater.

Yet again.

[PSPS]

7. "populist anger at Mr. Obama’s policies"

In the aftermath of the polarized health care debate, some Republican leaders said they were reluctant to give Democrats further ammunition to portray them as knee-jerk obstructionists. But they also want to harness the populist anger at Mr. Obama’s policies and are wary of alienating their base when they need it most.

Leave it to the NYT to call something created out of whole cloth by Fox News "populist anger." Oh, that's right. They've finally admitted it, haven't they? As republican David Frum observed, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we're discovering that we're working for Fox."

[underpants]

8. The grand excuse of the media- we have to have access

so they throw in those talking points otherwise the Republicans won't give the interiews and quotes. This is a mainstay of the PR of politics (both sides do it) but when one side is just flipping poo at the wall maybe it is time to weigh their "relevance".....I am not holding my breath for that to happen.

[rasputin1952]

9. I read this earlier in the NYT's...

They have found the Learning Curve. Won't do them much good though, just finding the Curve won't do much, and I don't think they are capable of actually learning while they have the "leadership" they do.

Grassley, Boehner, Steele, Palin, Armey, Gingrich, Cantor, Bachmann...these people, (and others), have placed the GOP in such a precarious position, it is difficult to comprehend how they can get out of the burning building.

To be sure, we have our boneheads as well, but not in the #'s the GOP has them.

My take is that people are going to see that the end of civilization is not in the hands of the D's, but rather the R's. The GOP is so anti-citizen is amazing they exist as a viable entity at all. D's are getting things done, not to the extgent I'd like to see, but the GOP platform is to move backward at amazing speed, no one is going to win with a strategy like that; the losses to the GOP in the mid-term will be incredible...how can one possibly campaign on "No", without a counterpoint that is even close to valid. All they have is "No", and the incredibly stupid position of telling people that the bush years, or Reagan years for that matter, were somehow "good". Even brain dead conservatives will see that is absurd.

These days the MSM is playing the R card, this is to our benefit. As long as they say "disaster will befall the D's in the mid-term"...the more convinced I am that we will actually gain. The vast majority of citizens are beginning to get some relief from the oppressive past few years, bush is seen as a pariah, his policies have been a disaster. The GOP wishes to return to that insanity...if they fight the president on the SC nomination, they will sign their own Death Warrant.

[underpants]

10. People are very much impressionable from the media

BUT we have seen that the media is widely disregarded after the War, Schiavo, etc.

I hope you are right.

[rasputin1952]

17. There will always be people who will go w/the GOP...

we call them idiots. However, when my mother, a life-long R, decides that bush was the absolute worst president ever, and that McCain would have been a very close second, and she absolutely refused to vote for either of them, I know that there are seismic changes in the GOP.

Out here in Nebraska, there is a sea change in how the GOP is perceived. The biggest issue is abortion, but even that is changing. A concerted effort by myself and others has shown those that are anti-choice have been duped by the GOP for 30+ years. When the GOP had both houses, the WH and a compliant USSC, nothing got done, and the only time abortion was even mentioned was during an election cycle. People are finally waking up to the fact that R's would do nothing to change the current laws, (I'm pro-choice), and it is going to hurt them.

Not many people think that doing nothing is good for the country, and most want to move forward. The GOP tactic of instilling constant fear in the citizenry is not working anymore...they overplayed their card, just as Ghouliani overplayed 9-11.

Going against HCR is a losing proposition...all we have to do is remind people that children will die if the GOP would actually repeal HCR, (the y wouldn't anyway, it's another "scare" tactic, people realize the earth didn't explode with the changes that went through, and shortly, they will accept even more and better changes).

Notice how they gave up on the Census fight after it was pointed out that in Section 2 of the Constitution, the very same document they scream about only looking at from a constructionist position, (can't get much more "constructionist than to have it spelled out directly in Section 2...:D ).

All things considered, the Mid-Term is going to suck for the GOP.

[old mark]

11. They really believe their own bullshit, don't they - I hope they fight

everything, right up till they lose the election in November and wonder what went wrong for them - again.

They seem incapable of learning, and obviously don't give a damn about the good of the country or the people.


mark

[sam sarrha]

14. i just posted this on another OP, i'm disabled phyisically..it applies

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8125129&mesg_id=8130140

it is just real difficult to type it again,

[Arkana]

15. You mean the "populist anger" that comprises about 10% of the nation?

[Democat]

18. Weren't the Republicans talking about "The Nuclear Option"?

Time for Democrats to bring it back?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

[NewJeffCT]

20. Yes, the so-called Trent Lott option

As he was the one that proposed it.

[wordpix]

19. it's the Senate that's the worst---change the rules while you have a majority, Dems!

geesh - is there anywhere else but in the Senate where 59 votes is not a majority? Either change the filibuster rule or let the asses filibuster ---let's hear the repuke senators talk all night long about their opposition to a perfectly fine candidate.

[madchick44]

21. It's time for an Asian American nominee.

Male or female.

[NewJeffCT]

23. I'd love to see Goodwin Liu

but, he's too young for a Democratic president to nominate him.

[gratuitous]

24. All Obama has to do is act like he was elected to be a Republican

Okay, it won't be proof against Republican sniping, but that's what the pre-emptive argument boils down to. All you liberals and progressives who've worked your butts off to make Democrats the majority party? Suck it.

[IDemo]

25. NostrIDemo predicts

They will follow the blueprint and turn the process into a mix of character denigration of the nominee and a series of "No You Can't!!" speeches against Obama, further ingratiating themselves with their mentally disturbed base.

Also, a woman of the frozen Northland will speak about herself without pause.