Among those who voted nay on Roberts are Bayh, Biden, Clinton, Kerry, and Obama—all candidates to pursue higher office, including nearly every ostensible 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate from the Senate (with Joe Lieberman the exception; though, as John Cole points out, he himself has “a better chance of being the ‘08 Democratic nominee than Joe Lieberman”).
I’m really only surprised at the Clinton vote (Bayh completed his slide left when he opposed the Rice nomination, Obama is shoring up his racial bona fides, and Biden and Kerry are incoherent as a rule)—which suggests to me that Ms Clinton, who has been trying to move toward the center in preparation for a 2008 campaign, is more concerned about the base than I thought she would be.
Still, Clinton kept her vote relatively quiet—unlike, say, Biden and Kerry and Leahy and Reid and Feinstein—proving yet again that she is a far cagier politician than her Democratic competitors, who were more boisterous in asserting their bald partisanship. And while this kind of obstructionism might please the Kossacks, it doesn’t play well with the greater electorate, particularly if it’s seen as pandering to a crazed base.
Bayh is fortunate that he isn’t up for re-election again until 2010 because he’d lose in Indiana today.
Isn’t Obama wasting his free shot early? How can he stand up against someone like Janice Brown and not look obstructionist? He gets major lickage from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times for being so “moderate” – this puzzles me a little bit. He has no need to pander to anyone in IL (IL Republicans are more disorganized and broken than the Taliban these days). I can only conclude this is aimed toward a future run at higher office…?
My guess is that Hillary! has concluded, probably rightly, that non-moonbat voters in 2008 will neither remember nor especially care how she voted on Supreme Court nominations in 2005.
At least so long as she can’t be readily painted as “obstructionist” by supporting judicial filibustering or being loudly, vocally insane like the Ted Kennedys and Joe Bidens of the Senate. So long as Hillary! can claim with a straight face to have just been making “nuanced” voting decisions on votes where the guy was going to win anyhow, she can probably thread the needle well enough. I suspect that might be tougher on the next nomination, because whoever it is will almost certainly be labelled “extreme” by her party’s financial masters in Moveon.org.
Hillary may be cagey, but can she overcome those cankles in ‘08?
Never underestimate the power of the cankle.
That Obama can do no wrong, guys. He’s a charmer of the first degree and anything he does will wash off with one sweet smile. If he’s not our first black Prez, my name’s not Horace T. Blunderford.
Hillary’s vote is easy to explain.
Her risk was in voting “yes” on Roberts, and having a Robert’s decision, down the road, go against her ideological agenda (which undoubtedly will happen), thereby triggering erosion to her Democratic base of support (who will hold the vote against her a mark of defiling her leftwing bona fides).
The middle voter that she needs to attract will not be turned off by the single issue of a SCOTUS nominee confirmation vote. (By definition, such voter is not in the middle, if the vote decision is paramount.)
Those of us that found the Roberts nomination to our liking, but also an important victory in his confirmation, are unlikely to ever support Hillary–even if she voted yes in his confirmation.
I haven’t seen the full list of Democrats voting “yes”, but most were strategic, i.e. Democrats up for re-election in states Bush carried, or those that recognize that eminently qualified candidates deserve confirmation–as a way to withhold a “yes” vote on someone that, when it is suggested, doesn’t meet up with Roberts qualifications. The ideologues of the Biden, Kennedy, Schumer, Durbin, Reid, and DiFi stripe will vote “yes” when the nominee drinks the leftwing Kool-Aid, and only when.
Blundeford,,
Have you forgotten??? We have already had our first black President.
Tsk. tsk.
It doesn’t mean much, I guess, but I’m annoyed by the unironic use of “obstructionist” to describe Democratic opposition. Was it the word you used when Jesse Helms was blueslipping every Clinton nominee in North Carolina? When Ronnie White’s nomination (for a friggin’ District Court seat in Missouri!) was withdrawn under duress? The GOP Senate was far more obstructionist on judicial nominations under Clinton than the Dems were under Bush I or Bush II. And the Republicans were being obstructionist on Circuit Court nominees even when Senate courtesy rules allowed minority party Senators to nominate District Court judges for their home state.
I probably would have voted for Roberts (I hardly think a better nominee for the left is going to come), but opposing him – even in a nauseatingly theatrical way) isn’t obstructionist, it’s voting.
Just because you have the Executive and Legislative branches doesn’t mean we have to bend over and be your bitch. You may force us to bend over, but “obstructionist” is an odd word for a helpless prisoner just trying to fight back.
Did you just pull that out of your ass or do you have some numbers to back that up. At no time, ever did a Republican Senate filibuster a Democratic nominee.
If I thought any of them were voting against Roberts because they didn’t think him qualified for the job, I wouldn’t have called it obstructionism.
But I don’t believe that. I believe they voted against him to play to their base.
You can disagree. But I don’t see anything laudable or heroic about “fighting back” by voting against a qualified nominee just to look like you aren’t bending over. After all, it’s the voters who put Republicans in the position to select judges. So when they select good, qualified judges, voting against them seems petty.
Never had to. They killed ‘em in committee. Anywat, the GOP did filibuster Abe Fortas for CJ (not under Clinton, but you didn’t restrict yourself).
I don’t disagree. Estrada is my nightmare judge, but I can’t see any grounds to oppose him. I’m making more of a “sauce for the goose” argument here.
I don’t believe so. Also your source for your numbers comparing Clinton nominations to Bush nominations.
You don’t have to believe me about Fortas, rls, but it is true.
I’ll try to get the confirmation numbers for you later tonight.
Hmmmm.
“the GOP did filibuster Abe Fortas for CJ”
Wrong. He was never brought up for a vote because so many Republicans and Democrats would have voted against him due to his corruption.
Charles,
Yor’re wrong. That was hardly a Republican filibuster, if you could call it a filibuster. Fortas couldn’t even get a majority of his own party to vote for him.
Go back and get some more facts.
Abe Fortas was a sitting justice on the Supreme Court when a cloture vote was taken regarding his nomination as Chief Justice. There were 66 Democrats in the Senate at the time. Ten Republicans voted for cloture, while the vote of 12 Democrats were marked as not present. Fortas’s problem was he could only get 35 Democrats to support him.
Fortas then had his Chief nomination withdrawn, and resigned from the Court the following year in the midst of an ethics scandal which would’ve likely led to his impeachment, had he not stepped down. (A small problem of accepting outside money.)
To suggest that Republicans filibustered a SCOTUS nominee is to have the history wrong.
Ronnie White nomination as a federal judge was a disgrace, as his actions demonstrated, once the light of day was shown upon them, IMO.
Never had to. They killed ‘em in committee.
Actually, they had any number of chances to filibuster Clinton-appointed judges. And while I think one can make the case that every nominee should get a floor vote, the majority defeating nominees in committee isn’t the same as the minority filibustering those with clear majority support.
I have to agree with Charles in one respect: We shouldn’t be calling them “obstructionist” if they actually allowed the vote to move forward (especially knowing they were going to lose as handily as they did). As much grief as the we give lefties these days for moving the goalposts on Bush, we should know better than to do so here.
I think the gang of 14 allowed the vote to move forward. I think had these folks had the opportunity to do so they would have gone along with a filibuster.
We’ll see what happens. I could be wrong, but for now I’m sticking to this assessment.
Well yeah, I suppose there is that agreement, and as long as it’s still in effect there’s something of an obstructionist pall over the proceedings.
But as long as they aren’t filibustering against the clear majority of the Senate, which the agreement gives them uncertain leeway to, I’m satisfied. Though it galls me to think these jackasses may think they’re offering up some kind of a gift by not filibustering.
3 words re: Republican Obstructionism.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Qualified but an ideological partisan judge from the word go. What was the vote ?
The fillibuster comes next. It won’t matter who is nonminated. The democrats will attempt to block the repubs from sitting another Justice. Whether the republicans will have the minimals to stop taking it in the butt and break through the fillibuster, I have no idea. If John McCain has anything to say about it, then we’ll continue to allow ourselves to be kicked in the groin by liberals.
Yes… but will the general electorate even remember who voted for, and who voted against Roberts in 3 years? And would members of their base remember? I suspect more of the later than the former, which explains why they did it.