I want to state right up front that I completely understand the worry, hand-wringing and pearl-clutching about what Mitch McConnell's Senate GOP members are going to do in light of the death of RBG. It's a nightmare scenario to be sure.
But there are things we can and should be doing. The two things I'm definitely doing today are as follows, and I will explain my reasoning in line with describing each of those two things.
First, I'm going to go out and make another donation to Jaime Harrison. I've seen a lot of discussion on other threads about Lindsey Graham's on the record, strong comments from 2018 about how he would not take up a supreme Court nomination even if it was from Trump in 2020 because it's too close to the election. I've seen a lot of people commenting with desperate hope that him being on record is something that's going to make a difference here.
I disagree. Lindsey Graham's calculations are going to be solely focused around what keeps Lindsey Graham in his Senate seat, and therefore in power. It's a pure craven formula centered around that. What he said in the past, certain things he's done in the past that both support and negate our thoughts around what he's going to do in the present don't matter. They don't. What matters is what Lindsey Graham thinks keeps him in power.
He is in a surprisingly tight race with Jaime Harrison. I am going to assert that Lindsey Graham doesn't add any of the narrow slice of “leaners” (people that fall onto and off of Trump randomly) that he needs at this moment in time to overcome what appears to be a dead heat race. Prior to the death of RBG, Lindsey Graham has been desperately trying to do things that won't alienate the admittedly small proportion of independent and swing voters left that he can get. That’s a sign that he’s trying to appeal to those “leaners”.
I'm certain he's sitting around thinking about the other side of that equation, which is how many of his voters, people he can bank today, will just sit this out if he holds the line on his 2018 statement and refuses to vote a nominee out of committee this close to the election. One of the ways that we can influence him is by showing huge fundraising numbers for Jaime Harrison directly following the announcement of the death of RBG. These guys follow that information always, no doubt — it is indicative of enthusiasm and the strength of an opposing candidate (generally). A massive post-death fundraising haul is going to play into the self-interested assessment with which Lindsey Graham is now faced.
The second thing I'm going to do is make another donation to Mark Kelly in Arizona. We are all talking about how we need four GOP Senators to refuse to vote to seat RBG's replacement prior to the 2021 inauguration. But if Mark Kelly wins in his race against Martha McSally, it's not four that we need, it's three. Because Martha McSally was appointed to John McCain's Senate seat when he died, if Mark Kelly wins, he doesn't have to wait until January to be sworn in. He can be sworn in as soon as November 30th (see Here and Here). November 30th is the date AZ certifies its canvass. It is, however, not clear to me one way or another if the Senate has any discretion in when they swear people in.
A substantial fundraising uptick for Mark Kelly, then, also becomes something that can move the opinion of a GOP senator that is trying to hang on to his or her seat. A fundraising haul by Mark Kelly is going to be noticed by Lindsey Graham. He's not going to put it all on the line if he has even a scentilla of a fraction of a whiff of fear that even with a majority GOP senate, they can't marshal the votes.
This is also where Murkowski, Collins, and Romney, and perhaps to a lesser extent, Grassley, become super important. Murkowski is already on record. Collins is also in a fight for her life and I'm betting that she's going to fall back on Mitch McConnell's words from 2016 in a desperate attempt to save her own ass and seat — going further right isn’t going to help her in Maine. That leaves only Romney to go on record.
Parenthetical side note: Robert Costa was on MSNBC last night and reported that McConnell has reached out to particularly his vulnerable Senate members as well as others and asked them to “keep their powder dry”. Costa basically said that McConnell is trying to stop members from stating one way or the other what they will or won’t do if a nominee is named both prior to the election OR during the lame duck session. He seems to be desperately trying to avoid the issue where even GOP members on which he could count say or do something publicly that boxes them in to where it becomes apparent they don’t have the votes.
Graham and the Republicans can count. We know this. The fight is not when they nominate someone, it's right now. Because none of these craven self-interested pieces of crap are going to risk their seats or their power, even if Mitch McConnell holds the line, if they believe they're not even going to be able to get the majority votes to get someone through (as I mention above). Then they will have risked everything and gained nothing. So the goal here has to be to infuse these vulnerable GOP Senate candidates with fear that even if they take a vote, it won't be successful. We need to start thinking like Republicans here.
Just a side note on McConnell. I've seen a lot of the comments and everything about flooding Amy McGrath's coffers. I have donated to her. But fundraising has never been her issue. And it's my assessment that an additional infusion of cash is not going to put her over the top. For whatever reason, even though I don't understand it, she's not resonating. So if you have to make a choice with your scarce dollars with respect to where you place them, I would humbly suggest that Harrison and Kelly are better uses of those scarce resources.
Let's go do this people. We literally have nothing to lose here. Because if we do nothing, we get exactly the apocalyptic outcome we fear most. At worst, we try and do something here and still wind up with that outcome which we're going to get if we do nothing. We need to grab our balls and try.