tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post9115565864396151274..comments2024-03-18T22:21:33.261-07:00Comments on The Debate Link: Garland Isn't a Kennedy, He's a BreyerDavid Schraubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-33462470338413160002016-03-17T09:40:26.338-07:002016-03-17T09:40:26.338-07:00To be sure, Garland's chances to get nominated...To be sure, Garland's chances to get nominated to the High Court were quickly passing, so he had every reason to take a gamble here.<br /><br />But it's not clear Obama really expects him to prevail. <br /><br />Some have speculated that Obama picked Garland precisely to put the Republican Senators in the uncomfortable position of treating a well-qualified, wholly inoffensive (white! male!) candidate badly, thereby helping the Democrats in November. I expect there's something to that. But if that were the game, I'd expect that Obama would have hunted down another Catholic nominee, just to tighten the screws a little more on the electoral consequences in Pennsylvania and Ohio. (And who knows? Maybe he did, but couldn't find any willing to serve as a pinata for the Republican Senate.) <br /><br />Rather, Garland's nomination has two effects.<br /><br />First, it <i>diminishes</i> the salience of the Supreme Court in the coming election. The chief dynamic in the coming election will the the extent to which Republicans can motivate their evangelical troops to turn out and vote for Trump (which is a lost cause) <i>and the rest of the Republican ticket</i> (which isn't lost yet, but things are looking bleak). The Supreme Court will be a key argument in trying to get them to hold their nose and pull the lever. Garland's nomination takes some of the steam out of that argument.<br /><br />Second, after the election is over and Hillary selects a more liberal nominee, various factions within the GOP will remonstrate against each other about how they could have had a relatively old, white, male, moderate justice, BUT NOOOOO...., the ideological purists had to lead us to our doom! That should be useful in the years to come.EWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07704258203202907249noreply@blogger.com