US Politics: Jousting for SCOTUS nominees

[Kalbear]

Quote

I do not agree with this.  I would put the odds of a D win at somewhere between 50 and 60%, but there are a lot of things that could happen to change that.  Republicans were underestimating You-Know-Who for the last six months, and it is foolish for Democrats to start now.  Just because he is an utterly unappealing candidate to you (and virtually everyone you know) does not mean he is a weak candidate.

This has zero to do with Trump, actually. It has to do with the overall demographics of the country. 

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This has zero to do with Trump, actually. It has to do with the overall demographics of the country. 

Demographics of the country are bad for the Republicans, for sure.  But Trump upsets the status quo a great deal.  It is very hard to say that just because white voters made up 77% of voters in 2004 and only 72% in 2012 that they will make up 70% of voters in 2016, and therefore Republicans cannot win.  Trump is going to get people angry, both for and against him, and that means that the general trends are likely to be less predictive than for other candidates.  He could go completely underwater, or he could lead a republican landside. 

[Swordfish]

10 hours ago, mormont said:

If this were true, the Republican debates would look very different.

The reason why the Republican party is so keen to pre-emptively rule out an Obama nominee is pretty simple. The Republican party, right now, is running scared of its own base. Understandably so, given that its own base has shown it's willing and able to chuck out anyone it considers ideologically suspect. It's more important to the Republican leadership to appear ideologically sound to the base, than to appeal to moderates.

Well...  OK.  You may be right.  I'm not party to internal strategy discussions going in inside the GOP machine.

But the question was why don't they simply vote down any nominee instead of standing firm on not voting.  I'm not sure this analysis, even assuming it's correct, really answers that question.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I agree that the biggest impact scalias death has in senate races is in New Hampshire. I doubt it will affect other races very much.

I disagree. It will hurt each of the Republican Senators with close races. It's just that Ayotte's is the only one that matters in the bigger picture.

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I disagree. It will hurt each of the Republican Senators with close races. It's just that Ayotte's is the only one that matters in the bigger picture.

Besides Ayotte, Kirk in Illinois, Portman in Ohio, Toomey in Pennsylvania, and Johnson in Wisconsin are all probably at least a little worried about this.

[Shryke]

20 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Demographics of the country are bad for the Republicans, for sure.  But Trump upsets the status quo a great deal.  It is very hard to say that just because white voters made up 77% of voters in 2004 and only 72% in 2012 that they will make up 70% of voters in 2016, and therefore Republicans cannot win.  Trump is going to get people angry, both for and against him, and that means that the general trends are likely to be less predictive than for other candidates.  He could go completely underwater, or he could lead a republican landside. 

Nah. Trump is not gonna lead a landslide. The worst case is like a huge terrorist attack or something leads to his strongman tactics getting big support. And even then, it's only their best shot.

Trump's hated by alot of people. More, apparently, then any successful or unsuccessful general election candidate at this point in the race.

[Lord Mord]

Swordfish,

25 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

Well...  OK.  You may be right.  I'm not party to internal strategy discussions going in inside the GOP machine.

But the question was why don't they simply vote down any nominee instead of standing firm on not voting.  I'm not sure this analysis, even assuming it's correct, really answers that question.

The answer is still about the base.  If you see the Devil coming, do you just dodge and feint his attacks?  That's not a very heroic meme.  Thinking about tactics is for lily-livered appeasers and socialists.  For the base, it's not enough to win by default -- you have to be seen winning, which means taking a stand.

[Maithanet]

4 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Nah. Trump is not gonna lead a landslide. The worst case is like a huge terrorist attack or something leads to his strongman tactics getting big support. And even then, it's only their best shot.

Trump's hated by alot of people. More, apparently, then any successful or unsuccessful general election candidate at this point in the race.

Trump's hated by a lot of people, but he isn't polling that badly nationally vs Clinton.  And I don't think his unfavorables are going to go up much, he has already pissed on virtually every demographic in America.  Once he pivots away from his most hardline stances, some people will forget. 

Plus, the chance of a huge terrorist attack prior to the election is very real.  ISIS wants the US to invade the Middle East, and they are certainly smart enough to manipulate an election to make it happen. 

[Swordfish]

7 minutes ago, Lord Mord said:

Swordfish,

The answer is still about the base.  If you see the Devil coming, do you just dodge and feint his attacks?  That's not a very heroic meme.  Thinking about tactics is for lily-livered appeasers and socialists.  For the base, it's not enough to win by default -- you have to be seen winning, which means taking a stand.

Again, all of this was in response to the assertion that blocking all votes was a political mistake, compared to simply voting them down.

I was not the one putting forth the notion that it was a mistake.  i don't think it is.

 

[Shryke]

8 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Trump's hated by a lot of people, but he isn't polling that badly nationally vs Clinton.  And I don't think his unfavorables are going to go up much, he has already pissed on virtually every demographic in America.  Once he pivots away from his most hardline stances, some people will forget. 

Plus, the chance of a huge terrorist attack prior to the election is very real.  ISIS wants the US to invade the Middle East, and they are certainly smart enough to manipulate an election to make it happen. 

Head-to-head polling is useless. Trump is well known and has huge negatives, even among his own party. The man ain't gonna make it in the general.

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Head-to-head polling is useless. Trump is well known and has huge negatives, even among his own party. The man ain't gonna make it in the general.

Head to head polling is not useful in predicting who will win sufficient states to reach 270.  It is useful in saying if a candidate is so unpopular that he or she could not possibly reach 270.  And the fact that Trump, with all of his negative popularity, is still doing OK in head to head matchups, says that those negatives do not singlehandedly torpedo his chances. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Just now, Shryke said:

Head-to-head polling is useless. Trump is well known and has huge negatives, even among his own party. The man ain't gonna make it in the general.

You know, when he announced and Jon Stewart did the big lead-in on The Daily Show, I tittered like a schoolgirl. This was comedic gold. I couldn't have been happier. The joke has gone too far. This shit isn't funny anymore.

 

 

 

[Mudguard]

I don't believe that Obama will nominate Sandoval.  He's a Republican and his legal credentials aren't that great.  His biggest plus is that he was a US district court judge for about 4 years, but he left the bench in 2009 to run for governor and hasn't practiced law since then.  As far as I can tell, he doesn't have much or any appellate experience, and while Ohio State is a good law school, it's not a typical feeder school for the Supreme Court.

I find it curious that his name was leaked, while we remain in the dark for the others.  My guess is that Obama is trying to use Sandoval to test whether the Republican's are willing to budge on their no hearing stand, but without actually having to nominate him.  He may also be using it to appear that he's seriously considering moderate candidates that Republican's would be happy with.

[Shryke]

1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

Head to head polling is not useful in predicting who will win sufficient states to reach 270.  It is useful in saying if a candidate is so unpopular that he or she could not possibly reach 270.  And the fact that Trump, with all of his negative popularity, is still doing OK in head to head matchups, says that those negatives do not singlehandedly torpedo his chances. 

No, it's just not that useful at all. It says little to nothing about their chances.

[Kalbear]

Take the election stuff out of here, pls.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

36 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Besides Ayotte, Kirk in Illinois, Portman in Ohio, Toomey in Pennsylvania, and Johnson in Wisconsin are all probably at least a little worried about this.

Agreed. I just keep citing Ayotte because she's the only one of the batch with presidential ambitions.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

I find it curious that his name was leaked, while we remain in the dark for the others.  My guess is that Obama is trying to use Sandoval to test whether the Republican's are willing to budge on their no hearing stand, but without actually having to nominate him.  He may also be using it to appear that he's seriously considering moderate candidates that Republican's would be happy with.

I agree 100% with this.

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Take the election stuff out of here, pls.

I don't really understand why we have two threads to begin with.  You cannot discuss US Politics without the Election, and you certainly can't discuss the election without politics. 

If I were going back to the SCOTUS pick, whether Obama should nominate a Republican like Sandoval, a very Centerist candidate like Sri Srinivasan or a more liberal candidate like Loretta Lynch, I think that it is influenced strongly by

A) whether any acceptable candidate will get a hearing. 

B ) whether Obama thinks that the Democrats will hold the White House in 2016. 

If there truly is no chance that any acceptable candidate would get confirmed, then it would make sense to pick someone that will look bad for Republicans not to consider, like Sandoval.  However, if Obama is confident in the Democrats chances in 2016, then he has much less incentive to pick a conservative choice.  He also has to consider that if he picks a conservative choice and Clinton wins in November, they might approve that choice prior to the inaugoration.  If Democrats retake the Senate, Republicans would actually have a pretty strong incentive to accept Obama's pick rather than the more liberal choice that would assuredly come in 2017. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I agree 100% with this.

Tywin,

Then I suspect the best reaction the Republicans could make is none at all.  If they want a moderate they need to look like they'd reject a moderate then confirm a moderate quickly if one is actually nominated.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I don't really understand why we have two threads to begin with.  You cannot discuss US Politics without the Election, and you certainly can't discuss the election without politics. 

If I were going back to the SCOTUS pick, whether Obama should nominate a Republican like Sandoval, a very Centerist candidate like Sri Srinivasan or a more liberal candidate like Loretta Lynch, I think that it is influenced strongly by

A) whether any acceptable candidate will get a hearing. 

B ) whether Obama thinks that the Democrats will hold the White House in 2016. 

If there truly is no chance that any acceptable candidate would get confirmed, then it would make sense to pick someone that will look bad for Republicans not to consider, like Sandoval.  However, if Obama is confident in the Democrats chances in 2016, then he has much less incentive to pick a conservative choice.  He also has to consider that if he picks a conservative choice and Clinton wins in November, they might approve that choice prior to the inaugoration.  If Democrats retake the Senate, Republicans would actually have a pretty strong incentive to accept Obama's pick rather than the more liberal choice that would assuredly come in 2017. 

Agree.  Hyper-compartmentalizations of discussions makes natural organic evolution of a discussion next to impossible as these issues all overlap.