Earlier this morning I was listening to Pete Williams on MSNBC saying there’s basically precedent on both sides for what the Republicans are now trying to do: block the President from making a Supreme Court nomination at the beginning of the last year of his term, and that the GOP has plenty of precedent on its side. That is frankly an astonishing claim, with virtually no history to support it. It is also a sobering example of how successful Republicans are usually and are now at working the mainstream media to normalize what are in fact unprecedented actions.
We’re hearing all sorts of chatter right now about what sort of nominee President Obama should send to the Senate, given the more or less flat rejection of any nominee. I say ‘more or less’ because even those who don’t quite accept McConnell’s flat refusal are I think still intending to vote down any nominee. Should he nominate a super liberal nominee, someone who most helps the 2016 election campaign, a quasi-conservative in the hopes of pulling a few a few Republican senators over? The last suggestion strikes me as silly. But I think most of the speculation is itself beside the point and sort of silly because there are things about Obama himself which I think tell us how this plays out.
TPM is seeking a Polling Intern to help manage its award winning app, PollTracker. This is a paid internship program in which interns get a crash course in polling and in how a digital media news organization works from the ground up. We’re taking applications for a polling internship to begin immediately.
As I’ve noted in a few of my posts, none of the purported ‘precedents’ Republicans have come up with over the last three days to justify their actions speaks at all to the current situation President Obama faces after the death of Justice Scalia. But even the seeming Holy Grail of GOP gotchas – Sen. Schumer’s speech before the American Constitution Society in 2007 – basically says nothing when you actually hear or read what he said, as opposed the media chatter or even the brief Politico write-up everyone has been passing around.
Ron Fournier says GOP decision not to hold hearings on Obama nominee is sign of systemic dysfunction. Fault of both parties equally.
LOL.
For whatever reason, Nevada’s Democratic caucus this Saturday has received scant attention from public polling firms. Until last week, there hadn’t been a publicly released poll of the Dem caucus this year. The one that came out last week, showing a 45-45 tie between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, was met with considerable skepticism because of who commissioned it: the uberconservative Washington Free Beacon. But today we have new polling from CNN/ORC that shows a similar result: Clinton 48, Sanders 47. Remember, Nevada is the first big test of whether Sanders can demonstrate appeal with a more diverse electorate.
TPM Alum Sahil Kapur has an interesting piece up this afternoon on what he calls growing signs of Republican division over Supreme Court tactics. It’s a good piece and you should read it. I think it is right to note that ‘tactics’ is definitely the issue here. There’s little reason to believe that there’s any division on the goal of preventing Barack Obama from choosing Antonin Scalia’s successor. The issue is whether the official position outlined by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is simply too brazen and unvarnished for some Republicans to sign on to – particularly swing state senators up for election in 2016.
Orrin Hatch is saying on CNN right now that he feels the need to protect the integrity of the Court by not having a nomination hearing during an election year. It’s fascinating to watch the effort to come up with some sort of plausible rationale for refusing to hold confirmation hearings.
Also, that it’s been decades since there was a Supreme Court nomination during an election year, as opposed to one month before an election year. Which, wow, there hasn’t been an vacancy in an election year. I pity the reporters who have to listen to this stuff with a straight face. There’s probably never been a vacancy after a Justice died at a ranch in Texas. There’s no precedent for replacing him!
Jeb Bush cites tenure as commander-in-chief of Florida as key foreign policy experience.