President Obama's new Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, appears to be vintage Obama: a moderate choice who's good on the merits, respected across the aisle, and makes it hard to conjure up any reason to vote against him. Indeed, seven sitting GOP senators voted to confirm him for the D.C. Circuit Court in 1997 along with 32 Republicans overall.
Sure, it boxes in Republicans, who continue with their hyper-partisan, short-sighted, constitutionally unfounded pledge to obstruct the president’s nomination at all costs. And no, this will not play well for Republicans with the general public (i.e. voters). If Mitch McConnell and his cronies continue down this path, their argument that they have proven they can govern when entrusted with the majority will be roll-on-the-floor laughable.
Still, the question remains: is it better to try to box in Republicans with this nomination, which arguably could produce backlash at the polls? Or is it more important to have a real mobilizer on the left, which this pick clearly isn’t intended to be? Garland is a 63-year-old, first-in-his-class Harvard graduate who adds no ethnic, racial, or gender diversity to the bench.
From the standpoint of animating the left, it seems like a potential missed opportunity. Progressives could have had three people on the ballot come November—the nominee, VP, and the SCOTUS pick who never got a vote. If that person had looked in any way like the group of voters who form what's become known as "the Obama coalition," she or he could have symbolized the very future of our nation that Republicans are actively working so hard to deny.
To some extent, Obama's choice may come down to a political question about whether you actually believe there's still a sizable number of swing voters in this country who will be incensed enough by GOP obstructionism to turn to Democrats in the fall. Or alternatively, whether you think swing voters are a mere ghost of decades past and, consequently, mobilizing one's base voters reigns supreme as a general election strategy.
It's also possible that President Obama "took the high ground" and nominated someone simply based on the merits of their record. But in an election year, where Republicans took the extraordinary step of politicizing this nomination before Justice Antonin Scalia was even given proper burial, Obama had plenty of room to choose someone who brought both impeccable credentials and diversity to the bench. Only time will tell how the Garland pick wears on Republicans and plays at the polls. Obama has, time and again, proven to be a cagey politician.
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