{"id":15445,"date":"2008-05-06T11:05:01","date_gmt":"2008-05-06T15:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15445.html"},"modified":"2008-05-06T11:05:01","modified_gmt":"2008-05-06T15:05:01","slug":"far-right-demands-fealty-on-judicial-nominees-mccain-to-acquiesce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/far-right-demands-fealty-on-judicial-nominees-mccain-to-acquiesce\/","title":{"rendered":"Far-right demands fealty on judicial nominees; McCain to acquiesce"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, asked about the kind of judges he would appoint to the Supreme Court, John McCain said, “It’s not social issues I care about. It’s the Constitution of the United States I care about.”<\/p>\n

That, of course, is not what far-right Republicans — who do<\/i> care about social issues — wanted to hear. This, along with McCain’s off-again, on-again support for banning abortion; his work with the “Gang of 14”; and his opposition to an anti-gay constitutional amendment have caused more than a little discontent on the right, which tends to put the White House’s role in shaping the federal judiciary near the top of its priority list.<\/p>\n

It’s no surprise, then, that McCain will pander shamelessly<\/a> to right-wing activists today, and promise to push the federal judiciary into even more conservative territory.<\/p>\n

At Tuesday’s speech at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., he will articulate a conservative judicial philosophy and the principles he would use to appoint justices to the Supreme Court. That includes “strict interpretation of the Constitution” and antipathy for “judicial activism,” a McCain adviser said.<\/p>\n

In the past, he has praised Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.<\/p>\n

Judges are a key issue for conservatives, who have concluded that they can’t advance their agenda unless they have backing from the courts. The Tuesday speech is likely to tell them what they want to hear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McCain will speak on the subject in North Carolina alongside Fred Thompson and Sam Brownback, as if to send a not-so-subtle signal to the party’s base: “They’re to the far right on judges, so I’ll be to the far right on judges.”
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\nI’m honestly not quite sure what conservatives are so afraid of. Looking back over McCain’s 22 years in the Senate, do you know how many times he’s voted against a judge nominated by a Republican president? Zero. And given that Reagan and the Bushes sent up some real doozies, it’s safe to say McCain isn’t exactly looking for moderation or judicial temperament on the federal courts.<\/p>\n

Like in most areas, McCain may even prove to be more rigidly ideological than Bush — it’s highly unlikely that he’d nominate someone like Harriet Miers to a lifetime position on the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the right is anxious to make McCain jump through the hoops<\/a>, and McCain seems willing to play along.<\/p>\n

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will launch a new push Tuesday to ingratiate himself with social conservatives who mistrust him but whose support is vital to his hopes of winning the White House.<\/p>\n

Right-wing leaders, who know he needs their backing, are working on a list of demands to pin him down on choosing judges with a conservative philosophy.<\/p>\n

The two sides are engaged in a minuet that will determine the shape of this year’s Republican presidential platform…. [L]eaders are coalescing around the idea that the GOP should pledge in its official platform that the president should nominate only judges with clear conservative records. […]<\/p>\n

Paul Weyrich, chairman of the conservative Free Congress Foundation, said he supports including the language on judicial nominees in the party platform. “I think the more we particularize that whole issue, the more people focus on the topic,” Weyrich said.<\/p>\n

Making detailed guidelines on judicial nominees part of the platform would also help social conservatives hold McCain to account if he is elected president. “You can compare what the party says with any subsequent action by its nominees,” said Weyrich.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’d just add that McCain is engaged in this humiliating right-wing suck-up today, when he knows the political world is largely focused on the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, and he expects most of tomorrow’s news coverage to focus on the results, not his assurances to his base to keep pushing the federal courts further and further to the right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, asked about the kind of judges he would appoint to the Supreme Court, John McCain said, “It’s not social issues I care about. It’s the Constitution of the United States I care about.” That, of course, is not what far-right Republicans — who do care about social issues — wanted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}