Is John McCain alive or dead?\u00a0 If alive, can he vote?\u00a0 Which way would he vote?\u00a0 After all he does love to spoil things.\u00a0 Assuming he will not be a factor, is Susan Collins the weak link?\u00a0 If she is, can she be persuaded?\u00a0 Is she up for re-election?\u00a0 What other republican votes are question marks?\u00a0 Could Manchin from West Virginia be convinced to vote against his party?\u00a0 If we don\u2019t have the votes how likely is it that the mid-terms will increase the Republican Senate Majority?\u00a0 Should we try now and then after the mid-terms?<\/p>\n
These are a few of the question that would need to be answered before trying to figure out if and\/or when a conservative justice could get through the Senate.<\/p>\n
And the other big question is whether Roberts is a ringer.\u00a0 Does he need to be outvoted too?\u00a0 If that\u2019s the case we\u2019ll need Ginsberg to go too.<\/p>\n
So, as with all things Washingtonian, there are wheels within wheels and waiting is an integral part of the game.\u00a0 But so far Trump has a pretty good track record of getting the luck.\u00a0 If he gets a good man in then we can hope to know the answer to some of the Roberts questions pretty quickly.\u00a0 And if Roberts does turn out to be a ringer that\u2019ll be just one more reason to distrust all things Bush and celebrate dodging the JEB! bullet almost as much as the Hillary one.<\/p>\n
So, my guess, McConnell will spend a little time doing his math and making sure he completely understands the dynamic.\u00a0 Now that he and President Trump have normalized their relationship I expect they\u2019ll coordinate carefully on the when and the how.\u00a0 They may spring it pretty quickly when it\u2019s time and not give the Media or the Dems a lot of time to screech.\u00a0 McConnell indicated the vote would be in the fall.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s a ruse.\u00a0 Maybe they\u2019ll surprise everyone and do it before Labor Day.\u00a0 I\u2019m not an expert on the machinery of the Senate so I don\u2019t know how likely that is.\u00a0 My guess is McCain may be an important piece of the puzzle.\u00a0 His wife is touted to be in line for the job when he dies.\u00a0 How this affects the vote is anybody\u2019s guess but my bet is that she\u2019s a lib.\u00a0 For that reason, they may not wait for her to be seated.<\/p>\n
Okay, so that\u2019s the horse race.\u00a0 Now, why is this so damn important?\u00a0 Well, because if Roberts isn\u2019t a ringer and we get another Gorsuch or Alito then we will have the first conservative Supreme Court since before I was born.\u00a0 In fact, we haven\u2019t had a truly conservative Supreme Court in over a hundred years.\u00a0 Can you imagine if SCOTUS decides that all the Constitutional mandates that the activists judges have discovered over the last fifty years (abortion, gay rights, gay marriage, affirmative action, federal encroachment on States\u2019 Rights, assaults on the First and Second Amendments) are not?\u00a0 And instead throws these decisions back to the states to decide?\u00a0 That would be a revolution.\u00a0 It would mean that instead of one homogeneous culture there would be several.\u00a0 And that might be the beginning of a great unraveling.\u00a0 Or it might be the occasion for a rethinking of many policies that were thrust onto the people from above by an elite that thought it was the best and the brightest and therefore ought to prevail against the will of the people.\u00a0 In places like Texas, Utah and the Old South more conservative populations would be allowed to live the way they wanted without the federal government harassing and scolding them for their values.\u00a0 To my mind that would come very close to restoring America to its essential virtue, a place where you are free to live the way you want without the government constantly interfering.\u00a0 And that sounds more or less like heaven to me.\u00a0 So, here\u2019s hoping the math works out.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope the final sum is a positive.\u00a0 I\u2019m tired of negative.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Is John McCain alive or dead?\u00a0 If alive, can he vote?\u00a0 Which way would he vote?\u00a0 After all he does love to spoil things.\u00a0 Assuming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[1155,683,1159,1154,1158,1157,1156,577,576],"class_list":["post-3420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-abortion","tag-affirmative-action","tag-assaults-on-the-first-and-second-amendments","tag-conservative-supreme-court","tag-federal-encroachment-on-states-rights","tag-gay-marriage","tag-gay-rights","tag-justice-kennedy","tag-scotus"],"yoast_head":"\n