« Galloway's Green | Main | First ,Tragedy »

October 26, 2005

Miers and the Midterms

Doug at Bogus Gold refutes Hugh Hewitt's arguments regarding how a withdrawl of Harriet Miers' nomination would affect the 2006 midterm elections. This is what Hewitt has said:

Getting this [Miers confirmation] vote wrong will be disastrous for the GOP, with possible consequences including Patrick Leahy returning to the chair of the Judiciary Committeee for starters. Michael Barone was right to call it a 51-49 or 51-48 nation after last year's election. That crucial margin can be lost. In such a situation, the GOP cannot send even 3% of its supporters to the sidelines.
What Hugh doesn't realize is that in an attempt to shore up that 3% of the base, the president and the Miers supporters are alienating a much larger percentage of non-evangelical voters who wanted to see a qualified jurist with proven constructionist views nominated to the court. Some evangelical voters (like me) are not in support of Miers at all, and do not wish to see her confirmed. Hugh is making assumptions regarding evangelical voters - that we are more interested in identity politics than good candidates, and that's simply not true.

Frankly, I think Hugh is playing to the petulant here. There is undoubtedly a segment of the Republican evangelical base that is always primed to bolt when they don't get exactly their way. Why should such a small segment of the population have so much control over a lifetime appointment?

Posted by slublog at October 26, 2005 07:47 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.slublog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1900

Comments

There is undoubtedly a segment of the Republican evangelical base that is always primed to bolt when they don't get exactly their way. Why should such a small segment of the population have so much control over a lifetime appointment?What if Bush is himself part of this small segment of the population?

Posted by: MainiacJoe at October 26, 2005 09:21 AM

Good question.

If so, then we're stuck with Miers unless the Senate does the right thing.

Egads, you have no idea how painful it was to type that last sentence.

Posted by: Slublog at October 26, 2005 09:37 AM

Aren't you glad now that Snowe and Collins are your senators? :-D

Posted by: MainiacJoe at October 26, 2005 11:14 AM

Now Obama's got trounced in the mid-terms, will we see a war against the banksters?

Posted by: Anne at November 5, 2010 07:51 AM