The Argument

Yesterday we lost our last, best chance for a majority consitutionalist court.

It's possible that 2008 will bring both a conservative President and majority-Republican Senate. But unlikely.

We no longer have any chance of getting strong consitutionalists approved by the Senate. The Democrats now control the committees -- such judges won't even be voted out of committee.

The Democrats don't have to filibuster anymore.

They're the majority.

To the extent I'm evangelical bashing, it's because this golden moment, that both secular consitutionalists and social conservatives had so long desired, is now gone.

And I can't shake the feeling this was due to Foleygate. It was after Foleygate, after all, that the GOP's support among white religious conservatives cratered. From the high eighties to the low sixties, or thereabouts.

It's true the GOP brought this situation upon itself -- it could have gotten rid of Foley a long time ago. So the evangelicals disgusted by this can't be blamed for the situation itself; the GOP caused the situtation.

But if the chance for a constitutionalist court was lost over Foleygate, then evangelicals cut off their noses to spite their faces. To punish the GOP's lack of vigor in investigating Foley earlier, we've given the Democrats the ability to block any judge that's more conservative than, say, Sandra Day O'Connor.

Or David Souter. Chosen because he had no paper trail and was hoped to be a conservative.

We all know how that worked out.

This is the GOP's fault (with an assist from HRC, Democratic operatives, and the media, of course).

But the reaction to it was ultimately up to each individual voter. If some voters chose to punish the GOP by punishing themselves-- well, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I personally could have lived with the loss of the House, which seemed almsot inevitable.

It's the Senate that's the killer, because we also lost the courts.

Chuck Schumer got his dream -- he filibustered judges for six years, never accepting the fact he was in the minority, and tossed the worst smears at anyone he thought could be a popular, young, long-serving constituionalist judge. Look at what he did to Miguel Estrada.

And now he has the majority. He doesn't have to resort to anti-majoritarian trickery and obstructionism anymore. He can claim, credibly, to represent the majority of America when he insistst that only "mainstream" -- meaning liberal -- judges be appointed to the court.

It's Foley's fault, it's Hastert's fault. It's the GOP's fault.

All true.

But I can't help but think some spectactularly anti-strategic voting by outraged social conservatives has punished us all.

The Real Culprits: Actually, the hell with basing evangelicals. You know who really sucks? THE MOUNTAIN STATE VOTERS, who keep voting in one fucking Democrat after another despite being some of the reddest states in the world.

And then they wonder -- gee, how come the judges we prefer don't get through?

North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming -- what the hell is your major damage?

Rob from SayAnything Blog told me why Democrats keep getting elected here -- egg subsidies. Chicken farmers want 'em, Democrats promise to collect up more dollars from New Jersey to pay chicken farmers in Montana.

So, really, the real reason we don't have consitutionalist judges is because Mountain State chicken-farming "conservatives" want their sweet, sweet crazy egg subsidies.

Egg subsidies in South Dakota.

Equal liberal judges for the entire country.

That's the way the world works.

It's really amazing how things of great import turn on things of great triviality and enomrous fucking stupidity.

More Splitters... Fairness compels me to note, as others have pointed out, that border-security advocates also deserted the party, as did smalll-government advocates, as did paleocons who want a Fortress America foreign policy, as did anyone who thinks the war isn't going as well as it should be.

A lot of people bailed on the GOP yesterday, and it's not fair to lay the blame at the feet of evangelicals.

However, to the extent evangelicals defected, they did in fact sabotage their biggest policy priority, and the only one the GOP was having any great success at: remaking the courts into a constiutionalist bastion.

I guess, for that reason, I find the defection of evangelicals more baffling than the defection of the others.

This is the one thing the GOP was doing right, and at (or very near) the top of the evangelical agenda. So the lower levels of support from that bloc are almost unbelievable (and perverse in its result).

I am gob-smacked by the God-fearing.

Border-Security Advocates... who stayed home were equally perverse in their calculation.

Bush, the guy not running, was in favor of the amnesty so hated.

The Congressional Republicans, who were running, were the only people in government blocking it.

Now GOP control of the House is gone -- and here comes amnesty!

"Punishing" politicians doesn't make sense when you wind up enacting the very policies that caused you to want to lash out in the first place.

posted by Ace at 06:42 PM

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