Jul 15th, 2009 at 10:43 am
GOP Senate Hopefuls Refuse to Take a Stand on Sotomayor
What’s a GOP Senate candidate to say about Sonia Sotomayor? On the one hand, this far out you still really need to worry about pleasing the base. On the other hand, you don’t want to look unreasonable in the eyes of the electorate. The Hill’s Aaron Blake thought he’d try to find out:
Interviews with a dozen Republicans running for Senate seats across the country failed to find one candidate who was willing to offer a clear position, despite the two months of public debate since President Obama picked Sotomayor for the high court.
It doesn’t actually seem like a very hard question.
11 Responses to “GOP Senate Hopefuls Refuse to Take a Stand on Sotomayor”
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July 15th, 2009 at 10:58 am
They’re just waiting to see what side their leaders come down on. The tactic in the hearings seems to be to repeat the same insulting “concerns” over and over, like water torture, in order to evince evidence of “bullying” or open some other crack in Sotomayor’s judicial temperament. It must be very frustrating, but she just has to remain courteous, and answer the questions, no matter how many times they are asked.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Huh? Why should they have to take a position before her hearings are even complete?
They are presumably listening to the hearings to see what she says.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Huh? Why not ask them their stand on the Thurgood Marshall nomination?
July 15th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Non-incumbents don’t want to piss off a large bloc of potential voters by unambiguously opposing a very well qualified Latina nominee. Incumbents feel they can get away with anything and still hold onto their seats especially if they are not up for re-election in ‘10. Pretty simple.
July 15th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
They are all obviously racist!!!11!!!
July 15th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Huh? Why should they have to take a position before her hearings are even complete?
They are presumably listening to the hearings to see what she says.
Bullshit. Damn near every Senator already knew how they were going to vote long before the hearings started. The whole thing is a facade designed to let each side air their talking points on culture war issues to win points with their base and fundraisers. The only reason they’re not taking a stance is because they know any stance they would take is going to be unpopular with some section of the voters they’d have to win to be elected.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Let me try again:
why should any candidate from either party feel obligated to express an opinion on an issue they will never get a chance to vote on?
July 15th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
You did.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
You did.
Really?
July 16th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Considering that none of them have a reasonable chance of winning, does it really matter what they say and don’t say.
A more interesting question would be to ask all of the Democratic candiates who are not incumbents about affirmative action, Ricci, and racial set asides. Any Democrats who comes out in support of race based government programs is obviously running in a very Democratic state.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Yup. You’ve been howling and whining about how terrible it would be to have a “racist” like Sotomayor on the court for weeks now.