Conservative donor pledging $1 million to an anti-Gonzales campaign.

[Pirate Smile]

The Supreme Sales Team
As rumors fly about the possibility of more resignations, the White House eyes its right flank.

-snip-

"Keeping Republicans and their conservative kin together won't be easy. For the first time in a nomination fight, corporate lobbyists are determined to play a leading public role. They are concerned that an obsessive focus on abortion and gay marriage will jeopardize what they regard as a once-in-a-generation chance to unshackle commerce from the grip of federal regulators. To hold their hands, they have not only Gillespie—whose lobbying firm maintains a roster of big-business clients—but former senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, the actor-lawyer-lobbyist, who signed on as the "sherpa" who will walk at least one Bush nominee through the confirmation process (think Virgil in Dante's "Inferno").

Leaders of the religious right, meanwhile, remain furious at the notion that the president might nominate his good Texas buddy Alberto Gonzales. Corporate types would probably support him. And he's been embraced by some besieged Democrats as the least of evils. But in the view of the religious conservatives, the attorney general bears a disturbing jurisprudential resemblance to David Souter, the "black box" moderate from New Hampshire picked by Bush the First in 1990. (" 'Gonzales' is Spanish for 'Souter'," goes one lame joke circulating on Capitol Hill.) One conservative donor is privately pledging $1 million to an anti-Gonzales campaign, according to a conservative strategist who insisted on anonymity because he didn't want to harm his relationship with the White House.

After a series of pre-emptive attacks on Gonzales, the White House fought back. "Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine," the president told USA Today. "When a friend gets attacked, I don't like it." Gillespie and the man who tapped him—Bush political consigliere Karl Rove—followed with calls to key religious conservatives, urging them to pipe down. Most complied, but some remained visible atop the barricades, including Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation. He wouldn't oppose Gonzales, he said, "but I won't support him either." Then came the jeremiad: "I warned them, as did other people. If they don't nominate a true conservative, it will be a betrayal... People will walk away from the cause. It will split the base, and it will devastate the party in 2006."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525756/site/newsweek/

[Horse with no Name]

1. Yeah he is good enough for AG because

he supports THEIR beliefs (torture), but not good enough for the SC because he doen't support THEIR beliefs (abortion).
What flip-flops. They have no redeeming qualities.

[notadmblnd]

3. it just tells me the repug party is splitting

and they are going to begin to eat their own. Personally, I'm going to sit back and watch the show.

:popcorn:anyone?

[wallwriter]

4. I agree. Should be fun. The real question

is whether the anti-choice freaks will attack Gonzalez for taking money from people who appeared before him in court. That I'd like to see...

[existentialist]

2. Gonzales

While I find it refreshing and encouraging that the neoconservatives and the religious right are willing to take each other on over this prospective nomination, I cannot find Gonzales less objectionable than anyone. The author of the nontorture torture memo is, in my opinion, not fit for any public office.

I would feel personally disgraced were I to support him for any reason.

[moondust]

5. But is the WH still taking bids?

:rofl:

[TheFarseer]

9. lol

why do I think they really ARE taking bids?

[Wapsie B]

6. That last paragraph is music to my ears.

It's something that's bound to happen.

:toast:

[Endangered Specie]

7. Ah yes, let the next realigment begin

:)

[TheFarseer]

8. I hope he nominates Gonzalez for two reasons

1. bush would get a pounding from right and left and that would be funny.

2. Like the OP mentioned, he's the lesser of two evils, IMO

[tedoll78]

10. I hope so too.

A Gonzales nomination means that we get a less-evil nominee (which is the best we can hope for from the Chimp), and we get to sweep the midterm elections when 10% of the fundie base sits-out on Election Day 2006.

If we sweep the midterms, we'd probably have at least 48 Senate seats, and the filibuster would be much safer. It'd also mean that if Stevens were to drop-dead or step-down, I wouldn't have a coronary right away..