One of Obama's greatest failures, in my opinion is represented by all of the open federal judge positions that he did not get filled. Not all his fault, but he gets some of the blame as do those of us who could not be bothered to vote in Senate races.
Indeed. Personally I think the death of Scalia will -- if nothing else -- make people aware of the importance of picking a president that will be appointing judges, and that the senate races are important for getting those appointments approved.
My personal favorite for an Obama nomination would be
Loretta Lynch -- she was vetted and approved by this very senate on April 23, 2015.
quote:
Lynch would be the first black woman ever nominated to the nation's highest court and the GOP would have a political problem during an election year if the Republicans refused to even consider her nomination, Goldstein wrote.
"I think the administration would relish the prospect of Republicans either refusing to give Lynch a vote or seeming to treat her unfairly in the confirmation process," Goldstein wrote. "Either eventuality would motivate both black and women voters."
Obama
could have made a recess appointment, but he specifically ruled that out. My impression is that he wants to hold the GOP delay tactics up in front of the nation to show their obstructionism and their willingness to skewer the constitution when it suits their regressive politics.
And it appears that they are living in a bubble again if they think one of their clown candidates can win the general, especially against Bernie.
As it stands it looks like the public is sick and tired of business as usual and massive campaign donations corrupting - or having the appearance of corrupting - the politicians to bend them to the will of big money.
Two candidates are not accepting big money donations: Bernie and Trump. Couple this with what sector of the economy is still left out of the recovery after losing savings, homes, jobs and you have a set of voters looking for real change. Which one people pick depends on their base political views.
And I think they will each win their nominations as a result. The establishment politicians and media don't see this - it is not on their radar because they were not badly affected by the recession: they may have lost some investment value at the time, but it has mostly recovered. The grass-roots people are off their radar, so they keep getting surprised by how well Trump and Bernie are doing.
And Trump is technically not doing as well as Bernie, he just happens to be doing much better than each of the other GOP, but his numbers against a single opponent would be significantly different.
Bernie has picked up some moderate (fiscal) republicans fed up with the current candidates, and a lot of independents, and that makes him more likely to win the election imho. I also think he will bring in more senate seats than Hillary because of his ability to attract new and young voters -- more voters usually benefits the democrats (which is why they lose off-year elections).
Pick up 4 seats and the Democrats win back the majority of the Senate, but win back 14 seats and they get a supermajority that would be filibuster proof.
Not likely to win back the House this year (especially with gerrymandered districts), but the senate is all you need to approve all those appointments.
Can you imagine the GOP *dismay* if Bernie is elected and nominates
Cornell West ... (heads explode)
They should be careful what they wish for.
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : Loretta link