About that Nuclear Option, Senator Reid...

The Senate Majority Leader appears rather irked over Republican block maneuvers of His Greatness, so once again he's threatening to change the rules and go nuclear, requiring a simple majority to get judicial nominees (excluding the Supreme Court) confirmed.

With just under a year to go until election day:

But now, Dems have already agreed not to change the rules once, and the filibustering continues, even though Republicans admitted when the last deal was reached that they were wrong to block Obama from staffing the government. And now, the GOP position is not grounded in an objection to Obama’s nominees or to the function of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; it’s grounded in the argument that Obama should not have the power to make these appointments to the court at all. As Jonathan Chait argues, Republicans may not have even thought through the full implications of the position they’ve adopted. But Dems have, and taking it to its logical conclusion, they believe Republicans have presented them with a simple choice: Either they change the rules, or they accept those limits on Obama’s power. And that really leaves only one option.

Funny, because the rest of us have an option too. Let me guide your hand, Harry.

The Washington Post Poll (full data here) already shows that registered voters would oppose a Congressional candidate who favored Obamacare by a 39% to 23% margin nationally, and you've got a helluva lot of territory to defend next November:

Narrowing down to just the states that went to Romney, the situation gets a whole lot uglier:

I'm just a lowly college dropout, with a slightly burned out brain, and even I know that 55-7= 48.

But hey, if you want to give conservatives in red and purple states a reason to go for an even bigger win, by all means. I'm sure a newly-minted Republican Senate Majority would happily return the favor on those rule changes of yours.

posted by CAC at 04:49 PM

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