Who’ll be the first Republican senator to oppose Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination? It seems to have come down to two leading candidates: Sens. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum (R-Pa.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.).
Brownback has been the most likely person to seize the opportunity, and in a recent campaign swing in New Hampshire, he continued to hint in that direction.
When he was a guest lecturer at a St. Anselm class on politics on Wednesday, a student asked which “one thing” he would have done differently if he had been in the Oval Office over the last five years.
Other primary contenders have staked out critiques of the Iraq war or the budget deficit, but Mr. Brownback’s answer was President Bush’s second nomination for the court. With Ms. Miers, Mr. Brownback said, “we just don’t know her background on judicial restraint and on the Constitution.” […]
Returning again and again to his frustration with Ms. Miers’s nomination, he said: “That is something the president campaigned on. It is something a lot of people have been active on, to change the courts, to overturn Roe v. Wade. And now you have your second nominee who is not known on Roe.”
And in the other corner is our old friend Santorum, who wants everyone to know he feels largely the same way.
When asked his opinion about federal Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, Santorum said he had not yet made up his mind.
“I don’t know yet,” Santorum said. “But I am concerned President Bush nominated someone who is a blank slate. I’m disappointed he wanted to nominate someone like that instead of someone with a record.”
If one breaks ranks with the party, expect the other to do the same. Who’ll be first? Stay tuned.