The questions for today are: Where do we stand as Republicans, and where are we headed?

As to the first question, Real Clear Politics, has a great commentary written by Michael Barone entitled, The Hardest Numbers. Mr. Barone makes a great case for just how strong we are as a party, and possible gains in the future. Here is a small portion:

“The implications? In the long run, Republicans are well positioned to increase their numbers in both the Senate and the House. Some Democrats hold seats because of personal popularity or moderate voting records. But when they retire, Republicans may well succeed them. In the short run, very few Republicans run great political risks by supporting Bush. Significantly more Democrats run great political risks by opposing him. Obstruction doesn’t work well for Democrats in Bush seats: Just ask former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. And at the moment, on Social Security, as Democrats Stan Greenberg and James Carville wrote last month, “Voters are looking for reform, change and new ideas, but Democrats seem stuck in concrete.”

While Barone’s commentary makes it all look rosy, we are still in the middle of some huge issues. For instance, the issue of judicial nominee filibustering springs to mind. Confirm Them has an article entitled, Help Us John, where it appears Senator John McCain is preparing to do anything but help. From this article, here is what Senator McCain said on Face the Nation yesterday:

“…someday history shows that we won’t always be in the majority. And if you had a liberal president and a Democrat-controlled Senate, I think that it could do great damage.”

And here are Confirm Them’s thoughts about Senator McCain’s statement:

“And so what if a future liberal President sends liberal Supreme Court nominees to a liberal Senate? That’s his (or her) prerogative. It’s incredibly important for different presidents to be able to shift the direction of the Court, so that in the long run the only surviving judicial precedents are the ones that are firmly based on the objective meaning of our laws. It’s essential to recognize that judicial nominations have this and many other characteristics that distinguish them from legislative matters, which explains why they’re covered in separate articles of the Constitution. Filibustering legislation allows a minority to preserve the legal status quo by preventing enactment of new laws, but ”in stark contrast” filibustering judicial nominations allows a minority to change the legal status quo, by insisting upon judges who will do their bidding. It would be unfortunate if Senators like McCain treat nomination filibusters just like legislative filibusters, for the sake of protecting the latter. Legislative filibusters can be protected without allowing the confirmation system to be destroyed.”

Hugh Hewitt was a little more blunt on this subject when he said,

“Senator McCain appeared to say yesterday that he would vote to overturn a ruling from the Chair that the filibuster was out-of-order. If indeed he does, that would doom his 2008 presidential campaign, if in fact he intends to mount one. Senator McCain’s office can be reached via 202-225-3121, as can all senators’ offices”

As to the second question concerning direction, Red State has two articles worth reading. One entitled, Dumping DeLay?! which links to Robert Novak in support of keeping DeLay, and another entitled, Republicans Become the Stupid Party Again which supports moving DeLay out of the equation. We disagree with this article’s first two points, but overall it is a good read.

As to the second question above, the Republican party is in a strong position and could set the political agenda for years to come. The only question is: Will they?

This entry was posted on Monday, April 11th, 2005 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Judicial Nominee Filibustering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Tags: nominee filibuster, hard numbers, John McCain, Republican Party