>Well, here's the real world. Bush is likely to appoint the successor to
>Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor, which won't alter the balance much, and
>Stevens, which will. So
>what's your solution; drop everything and start organizing for a Dem
victory
>in 2004? I think we have to learn to work around the GOP and itrs Supreme
>Court, ugly as that prospect may be. --jks
I never argue for dropping anything for electoral politics, other than dropping useless third party efforts. The best way to win electoral contests is to do other grassroots organizing such as community work and union organizing. The stronger that organizing is, the stronger turnout those groups can do at election time. Whatever one can say about the limited success of new unionizing by the Sweeney regime, the actual process of deploying more effort to organizing has helped remobilize unions internally, which paid off hansomely in Senate wins and Gore victories in the midwest.
But as far as the Supreme Court, the fight will come when one of the Justices retires. The hardest line position is to call for filibustering ALL nominees, declaring that since the Supreme Court picked Bush, he cannot pick the Supreme Court, since that would undermine any sense of separation of powers. If its O'Connor who retires first, that will be an easier case to make, since she is on record publicly as having wanted Bush to win so he could appoint her replacement- something we can pound on. If Bush wins the next election, he could make a nomination but not until he wins an election without Supreme Court intervention. That would de facto make the Supreme Court a much higher profile part of the 2004 election.
Why you think Bush is a shoo-in for reelection I have no idea. The economy is going south and most of his political initiatives are going to be somewhat stalemated in the Senate, mostly because they are unpopular with the public. The polls are still striking that while Bush is personally liked, people overwhelmingly identify his tax policy as favoring the very wealthy. In California, they blame Bush more for the electricity crisis than they blame Davis, a pretty amazing feat for Bush in just one month in office.
I know defeatism on policy and appointments is a great position for those who want to avoid supporting Democrats, since if we are going to lose anyways, why make any unpalatable political compromises?
But as someone who publicly predicted Gore would lose, I will strongly argue now that Bush is eminently defeatable in four years. Have to see how a few other things play out to make a stronger prediction, but the key point is that massive mobilization around filibustering any nominations. The 42 votes against Ashcroft was a pretty good message that such filibusters are possible, given the Senate's usual allergy to voting against their own.
-- Nathan Newman