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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (25591)	2/4/2008 10:36:27 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

You are going to hate this as much as I did: McCain and the Supreme Court By STEVEN G. CALABRESI and JOHN O. MCGINNIS February 4, 2008; Page A14 The conservative movement has made enormous gains over the past three decades in restoring constitutional government. The Roberts Supreme Court shows every sign of building on these gains. Yet the gulf between Democratic and Republican approaches to constitutional law and the role of the federal courts is greater than at any time since the New Deal. With a Democratic Senate, Democratic presidents would be able to confirm adherents of the theory of the "Living Constitution" -- in essence empowering judges to update the Constitution to advance their own conception of a better world. This would threaten the jurisprudential gains of the past three decades, and provide new impetus to judicial activism of a kind not seen since the 1960s. We believe that the nomination of John McCain is the best option to preserve the ongoing restoration of constitutional government. He is by far the most electable Republican candidate remaining in the race, and based on his record is as likely to appoint judges committed to constitutionalism as Mitt Romney, a candidate for whom we also have great respect. We make no apology for suggesting that electability must be a prime consideration. The expected value of any presidential candidate for the future of the American judiciary must be discounted by the probability that the candidate will not prevail in the election. For other kinds of issues, it may be argued that it is better to lose with the perfect candidate than to win with an imperfect one. The party lives to fight another day and can reverse the bad policies of an intervening presidency. The judiciary is different. On Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine Supreme Court justices will be over 70. Most of them could be replaced by the next president, particularly if he or she is re-elected. Given the prospect of accelerating gains in modern medical technology, some of the new justices may serve for half a century. Even if a more perfect candidate were somehow elected in 2012, he would not be able to undo the damage, especially to the Supreme Court. Accordingly, for judicial conservatives electability must be a paramount consideration. By all accounts, Mr. McCain is more electable than Mr. Romney. He runs ahead or even with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the national polls, and actually leads the Democratic candidates in key swing states like Wisconsin. Mr. Romney trails well behind both Democratic candidates by double digits. The fundamental dynamic of this race points in Mr. McCain's way as well. He appeals to independents, while Mr. Romney's support is largely confined to Republicans. With many more Republican senators up for re-election than Democrats, the nomination of Mr. Romney could easily lead to a Goldwater-like debacle, in which the GOP loses not only the White House but also its ability in practice to filibuster in the Senate. Thus, even if we believed that Mr. Romney's judicial appointments were likely to be better than Mr. McCain's -- and we are not persuaded of that -- we would find ourselves hard-pressed to support his candidacy, given that he is so much less likely to make any appointments at all. In fact, there is no reason to believe that Mr. McCain will not make excellent appointments to the court. On judicial nominations, he has voted soundly in the past from Robert Bork in 1987 to Samuel Alito in 2006. His pro-life record also provides a surety that he will not appoint judicial activists. We recognize that there are two plausible sources of disquiet. Mr. McCain is perhaps the foremost champion of campaign-finance regulation, regulation that is hard to square with the First Amendment. Still, a President McCain would inevitably have a broader focus. Securing the party's base of judicial conservatives is a necessary formula for governance, as President Bush himself showed when he swiftly dropped the ill-conceived nomination of Harriet Miers. Perhaps more important, because of the success of constitutionalist jurisprudence, a McCain administration would be enveloped by conservative thinking in this area. The strand of jurisprudential thought that produced Sen. Warren Rudman and Justice David Souter is no longer vibrant in the Republican Party. Others are concerned that Mr. McCain was a member of the "Gang of 14," opposing the attempt to end filibusters of judicial nominations. We believe that Mr. McCain's views about the institutional dynamics of the Senate are a poor guide to his performance as president. In any event, the agreement of the Gang of 14 had its costs, but it played an important role in ensuring that Samuel Alito faced no Senate filibuster. It also led to the confirmation of Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and Bill Pryor, three of President George W. Bush's best judicial appointees to the lower federal courts. Conservative complaints about Mr. McCain's role as a member of the Gang of 14 seem to encapsulate all that is wrong in general with conservative carping over his candidacy. It makes the perfect the enemy of the very good results that have been achieved, thanks in no small part to Mr. McCain, and to the very likely prospect of further good results that might come from his election as president. Messrs. Calabresi and McGinnis teach at Northwestern University Law School. They shall here after be noted as being McCain apologists. online.wsj.com

To: sandintoes who wrote (25591)	2/4/2008 10:45:09 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71588

The Problem with John McCain by Melanie Morgan (more by this author) Posted 02/04/2008 ET Updated 02/04/2008 ET Many of my fellow talk-show hosts and conservative friends such as Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin are deeply disturbed by the possibility that Senator John McCain may become the next presidential nominee of the Republican Party. Our dislike of Senator McCain’s positions is real and visceral. Just a few of their comments are enough to illustrate the depth of our feelings toward McCain: Levin: "... I have to say that I fear a McCain candidacy. He would be an exceedingly poor choice as the Republican nominee for president." Malkin: “He is an expert at filibustering and he is an expert at crooked talk. He talks a smooth game about how, of course, he supports our immigration laws but at the same time John McCain's embrace of his immigration advisor Juan Hernandez is giving conservatives heartburn. Hernandez had served as a Mexican cabinet official under Vicente Fox where he worked diligently to do nothing but undermine sovereignty and our laws." Coulter: “Republicans who vote for McCain are trying to be cute, like the Democrats were four years ago by voting for the ‘pragmatic’ candidate, Vietnam vet John Kerry. This will turn out to be precisely as clever a gambit as nominating Kerry was, the brilliance of which was revealed on Election Day 2004." You get the idea. We conservatives will find it exceedingly difficult to motor to the polls if McCain is the nominee. We appreciate his valor, service and honor as the only Presidential candidate who served in the U.S. military. He fought valiantly for the United States in Vietnam, an unpopular war, and stayed strong under brutal attack by our enemies. Sen. McCain is a true wartime hero whom we will never forget. But that does not entitle Sen. McCain to our trust or support in his run for the presidency. But, as we learned with former Sen. Bob Dole, the American people want more than a war hero to lead our country. We need somebody who is level-headed on the big issues: immigration, the war against radical Muslim jihadists, (which goes far beyond the “surge”) the economy, taxation, threats of government-run health care, and the man made issue of global warming. Did I mention immigration? Sen. McCain’s personality may be his biggest problem. He is too quick to play bipartisan polka with liberals like Sen. Ted Kennedy when he should be holding the line for common sense conservatism. Instead of slapping the backs of those who nod with approval as illegal aliens flood over our borders, Sen. McCain should have been building walls to keep the intruders out. Immigration is the foremost reason why conservatives part company with John McCain. McCain’s campaign partnership with a former spokesman for Mexico’s president sends a clear message that a President McCain would welcome anybody who busts into our country illegally instead of sending them home. It is a scary, dangerous position. McCain-style open-border policies would allow terrorists, already known to cross our porous borders, to walk in without challenge. Immigration, of course, isn’t the only McCain position that fires up conservatives. McCain-Feingold restricted First Amendment rights. Then there was the McCain-Kennedy education fiasco. As a conservative, I flinch anytime I hear of a new piece of legislation that begins with the name McCain. The American people have very little tolerance for bad immigration policy. I learned this firsthand from my personal experience as "The Mother of the Recall," a nick-name I earned from movement conservatives for my role in initiating the recall of then-Gov. Gray Davis of California. Voters rallied around Republican-led efforts to throw Davis out of office. One of the biggest motivators was his support for driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. We got rid of Davis, but then came time for choosing from 28 other candidates on the ballot. The GOP loved state Sen. Tom McClintock, the principled conservative with a proven track record of reform, but instead chose Arnold Schwarzenegger because of their concerns about McClintock's 'electability.' What did California get for the big 'win'? A 14 billion dollar deficit, his advocacy for business-crippling regulations backed by the phony junk science of man-made climate change, and bad policy on, you guessed it, illegal immigration. Is it a coincidence that Arnold Schwarzenkennedy endorses John McCain? A close friend of mine coined the expression "Open a vein before you vote McCain." He says it, of course, with the greatest affection for the good Senator - and the staggering fear of him carrying the GOP mantle into November’s campaign. Conservatives oppose McCain because of the long-term damage done to the party by his defining it as a pro-amnesty, environmental extremist, high tax, high regulation, and liberal judge party. As conservatives we can not endorse this. Ironically, at the end of Schwarzenkennedy's first administration, the California State GOP is broke. In debt. And with no future viability for perhaps decades to come. John McCain may very well do the same for the Grand Old Party if he is our next nominee. [Correction: an earlier version of this article misquoted Michelle Malkin as having said that McCain had served as a Mexican cabinet official. We regret the error; Ed.] Ms. Morgan co-host of the Lee Rodgers and Melanie Morgan show on Talk Radio KSFO San Francisco, which is the highest rated morning drive talk show in the Bay Area. She's been referred to as the "Mother of the Recall" for having launched the recall of Gray Davis, California's former governor and is chairwoman and co-founder of Move America Forward, the largest pro-troops, pro-American grassroots group in the country. humanevents.com