Category: 2012 Election

Unlike the head of the Pennsylvania GOP, I’m not afraid of a Texas candidate with a style of folksy flair. However, there is such a thing as taking the folksy thing a bit too far when a candidate not only reveals ignorance, but defends that ignorance as something the American people want. If we were talking about ignorance of something like an obscure genre of literature, yeah, most voters could give a damn about a what a presidential candidate knows. If we’re talking about the nine current members of the Supreme Court, uh, that’s just a tad more important.

“I don’t have memorized all of the Supreme Court judges,” Perry said on “Fox News Sunday,” responding to a question about a Des Moines Register interview he did last week when he referred to the eight justices of the high court. After the interview, the campaign said Perry was referring to a specific case that went 8-to-1 in a direction Perry didn’t agree with.

The American people “aren’t looking for a robot that can spit out the name of every Supreme Court justice or someone that’s going to be perfect in every way. They’re looking for somebody who’s got values,” Perry said.

I think it’s a bit appalling that he just called all of us who can name all nine justices robots. And, no, I don’t want a robot in the Oval Office. I do want a leader who understands that regardless of what pro-gun legislation he/she might sign or anti-gun legislation to be vetoed, the most important Second Amendment decisions he/she will likely make will be in a Supreme Court appointment and any federal bench appointments. Knowing the nine sitting justices is a reasonable measure that one takes the Court seriously.

As a side note, I think the campaign’s spin for Perry is actually worse than what he said. They claim he just couldn’t remember how the justices fell in a case on which he held an opinion strong enough to make it a campaign issue. If the case is that important, shouldn’t Perry know the justice who stood with his position which would, by default, give him the names of the eight who voted against his position?

Today, seven Republican candidates met for a debate leading up to the primary to ultimate take on Sen. Bob Casey. Most questions focused on tax policy, the economy, and healthcare. However, during the lightning round where questions were answered with a show of hands, they asked two gun questions.

One question was whether they support national concealed carry reciprocity. Every single candidate raised their hand without visible hesitation (that I caught, or that moderators caught). The second question was whether they could imagine a scenario where they would restrict any firearms sales to lawful owners. Not a single hand raised.

I mention the hesitation thing because moderators were looking for disagreement, hesitation, eye rolls, or other non-verbal communication so they could pick on candidates for detailed follow-up. None of the follow-ups were related to the gun questions.

Hesitation is also relevant given the squishy vote on the issue from the incumbent senator on the issue in the previous Congress.

Les Jones thinks so:

As a friend of mine said, for someone who had never stolen anything, Cage’s character sure picked an ambitious first target. You could say the same thing about Herman Cain trying to win the presidency as his first political office. Based on this week’s announcement Cain obviously didn’t have Cage’s screenwriters.

I never really could buy into Cain as a serious candidate. Even Ronald Reagan, though he had the simple folk charm of a political outsider, was a two term governor of California before seeking the Presidency.

Cain’s 15 minutes was largely due to the party seeking someone to be the anti-Mitt. That clearly isn’t Cain. Who who will be the next anti-Mitt? Gingrich? That’s about all that’s left, before we’re going to have to decide whether to swallow the bitter pill.

Expect to see a lot of article like this over the next few months as we get into the silly season:

Harry Wilson, author of a book on gun politics and director of the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College in Virginia, summed up the landscape, telling Werner: “Gun control is a fight that the administration is not willing to pick. They’re not likely to win it. They certainly would not win it in Congress, and it’s not likely to be a winner at the polls. … It comes down to one pretty simple word: Politics.”

I agree that Obama is not likely to push gun control overtly, but the best thing he can do for our opponents is to keep putting people on the Supreme Court who will vote against the Second Amendment every time. I know there’s a lot of skepticism out there if Romney is the eventual nominee, but also keep in mind Romney is going to be beholden to very different interests than Obama is. When it comes to judicial nominations, he will be expected by the GOP to pick from the pool of conservative judges. Presidents don’t have as much leeway as you might think on these matters, which is why Harriet Meyers is not currently a Supreme Court justice. In the pool of folks any GOP President is going to have to choose from, there’s a much stronger likelihood of finding a justice who will back the Second Amendment than the almost non-existent likelihood that will be the case in the pool Obama has to choose from.

Remember, for higher court positions, Obama will have to choose pretty exclusively from Clinton appointed judges. His own choices for the lower courts are not likely to be much better, given the pressures he faces to put left-leaning urbanites on the Court. Any GOP candidate, even if it’s Romney, is going to be facing a vastly different political calculus when it comes to court nominations.

The Hill is claiming the NRA endorsement for Montana’s Senate seat is up in the air. It will be Tester against Denny Rehberg. Tester should generally benefit from NRA’s incumbent friendly endorsement policy, even though Rehberg has a very pro-gun record in the House. The only thing I could see complicating things for Tester is that he voted to confirm Sonya Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Other than that, I would be surprised if Tester doesn’t get the endorsement, unless NRA is looking to send a strong message to Senators that votes for Court nominees that don’t support the Second Amendment won’t be tolerated. I would agree with that course of action, because I don’t think there’s anything more important that Senators can vote on right now than Court appointments.

Tam wonders whether the GOP is trying to deliberately throw the election. By all historical accounts, given how poor the economy is, and how high unemployment is running, there should be no way that Barry wins a second term, yet I’m quite worried that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I’m normally willing to get behind someone in the primary by this point — in 2008, before he dropped out, it was Fred Thompson. Policy and temperament wise, Rick Perry actually seems to be the best of the lot, but his performance so far has just been disappointing.

I’d be willing to cast the “not-Obama” vote in the general election, and get behind the eventual candidate, even if it’s, and it pains me to say this, Mitt Romney. I don’t expect much from the next President, since I think the economy will still pretty much suck, and people still won’t have jobs. The next guy is likely to be a one termer too if Obama gets the boot, and I’d almost hate to waste someone good on a doomed presidency. So if Romney has to be the sacrificial lamb, so be it. We get to roll the dice again in four years with the Democrats, and maybe there’s a chance they’ll field someone who isn’t a total disaster. There are two things that are true, however, if Obama is re-elected:

• Scalia and Kennedy will be 80 by the end of Obama’s second term. Thomas will be 68. The chances Obama will get to replace one of these justices is extremely high, and if he does, it’ll be a bloody miracle of we can save the Second Amendment. Best case scenario is that you’ll, at the least, be able to keep a gun in the home, but with all DC and Chicago’s ridiculous regulations being upheld.
• Secondly, while Romney is responsible for socialized medicine in Massachusetts, as a Republican President he’ll be facing an awful lot of party pressure to sign an Obamacare repeal if it hits his desk. I don’t see any scenario where Romney could veto and not have a revolt within his own party on his hands. Obama will almost definitely veto a repeal, and the Republicans aren’t likely to have enough votes in the Senate to override.

So that’s kind of how I’m looking at it. To me the two things we want out of the next President are to put someone on the Supreme Court who will be a vote in favor of the Second Amendment, and to sign a repeal of Obamacare. The majority of Obamacare does not go into effect until 2014, but once it does, you’ll never get rid of it. I think the candidates we have now in the GOP field are going to be reasonable vessels for trying to achieve both those goals. It’s not perfect, but I can deal with a disaster of a GOP Presidency as long as those two goals have a reasonable chance of being achieved. Under Obama, there’s almost no chance of that.