White House Cheat Sheet: GOP Weighs Strategy on Court Fight
Put aside the back and forth that followed President Obama's nomination of appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday and you are left with one simple fact: barring some sort of major bombshell regarding Sotomayor (and that is always possible) she is almost certain to be confirmed.
The math on the nomination is simple. Democrats currently control 59 seats in the Senate and could well control 60 -- if Al Franken emerges victorious from a case pending before the Minnesota Supreme Court -- before Sotomayor's hearings even begin. The president who nominated her stands at 60 percent (or higher) job approval while Republicans as a party continue to struggle for a message and a leader. And, Sotomayor's history-making status as the first Hispanic nominee for the Court is a point of pride in the Latino community, the nation's largest minority group and a critical voting bloc in coming national elections.
Combine those three factors and it's clear that an attempt to block Sotomayor by Senate Republicans would be met with dire political consequences, which is why most of the statements out of Republican elected officials today were even-handed at worst and kind at best.
Even conservative columnist George F. Will acknowledged as much during an interview on "This Week with George Stephanapoulos" saying:
"You'll see a big argument, but it is a foregone conclusion that will lack comic relief because Joe Biden is no longer on the Judiciary Committee and can't ask as he did of Alito an eight and a half-minute question, but I don't -- everyone knows that whoever he picks, unless they haven't paid their baby-sitter taxes is going to be confirmed."
Given the difficulties inherent in an all out attempt to block Sotomayor, is this nomination already a lost cause for Republicans? Not by a long shot.
If the ultimate goal for Republicans is to defeat Obama in 2012, then the Sotomayor pick presents them with a golden opportunity to cast the president as a traditional liberal -- far from the post-partisan figure he was able to present to the American public in the 2008 election.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who has made no secret of his interest in a 2012 bid, made the same point in a statement released Tuesday on the Sotomayor selection.
"The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is the clearest indication yet that President Obama's campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bipartisan way were mere rhetoric," said Huckabee.
Alex Conant, a Republican consultant and former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, added that that while Obama was able to remain an "enigma" during the campaign, the American public is now getting a "better sense of who he is. And on domestic policy, he's proving to be a liberal partisan."
For Republicans to have any chance of defeating Obama in 2012, they must find a way to convince independent voters that the president is far less than advertised on the issue of bipartisanship.
In the 2008 presidential election, Obama won self-identified independents, who comprised 29 percent of the electorate, by eight points -- a margin roughly equivalent to the 53 percent to 46 percent victory he scored nationwide over Arizona Sen. John McCain. Among self identifying "moderates," Obama's margin was even larger -- 60 percent to 39 percent.
Since coming into office, Obama's approval ratings among independents has stayed strong and majorities of Americans believe he is genuinely committed to bipartisanship and changing the way things are done in Washington.
A Gallup poll conducted in late April to coincide with Obama's 100th day in office showed that two-third of Americans believed he was "making a sincere effort to work with members of the other party to find solutions acceptable to both parties," a piece of data that should worry any Republican strategist trying to position a candidate to topple Obama in three years time.
It's never too soon then, from a Republican party perspective, to start building a counter-narrative that Obama may talk a big game on bipartisanship but his actions -- from massive increases in government spending to the Sotomayor pick -- reveal him to be a down-the-line liberal.
"Given the realities that Senate Republicans are confronted with, this could and should be a real goal," said Chris Henick, a prominent Republican strategist, of the "Obama as liberal" strategy.
Exit polling suggests that if Republicans can effectively tell that story the American public may well be receptive to it. Just 22 percent of the national exit poll described themselves as "liberals" while 44 percent called themselves "moderates" and 34 percent "conservatives."
Re-defining Obama as a liberal is, without question, Republicans best path to the White House. And the Sotomayor pick could well be one of the critical talking points in making that case. Can (and will) Republicans do it? |
