Can You Imagine Newt Gingrich's Supreme Court Appointments?

Is being endorsed by Herman Cain a good thing? Only in the bizarro world the GOP has created for itself. Yesterday Nate Silver tried to answer the question about how real, or how safe, Gingrich's lead is in Iowa. Historically, someone up 8 points on his closest rival a month in advance of the caucuses is a good bet, especially someone with momentum. "Of the 11 competitive caucuses since 1980," writes Silver, "the candidate leading in the polls a month in advance won them 8 times. That’s a pretty good batting average for Mr. Gingrich. As difficult as it is to poll the caucuses, surveys of Iowa have tended to be pretty reliable in the past."

If I were setting odds as of this morning, I might assign Mr. Gingrich about a 45 or 50 percent chance of winning Iowa, followed by Mr. Paul at 25 percent and Mr. Romney at 15 percent, reserving a small possibility of a comeback by Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry. Of course, much of this has to do with what you think about the robustness of Mr. Gingrich’s campaign overall and not just his Iowa polls. There are three debates in Iowa between now and the caucuses, which will undoubtedly go a long way toward determining the winner.

Silver says that, historically speaking, Romney's shrinking lead in New Hampshire means less at this point in terms of predicting a win in that state and he thinks Ron Paul, Gingrich, and even Huntsman all "have plausible chances there." Recall, for example, that in 2008. Romney was way ahead at this point in New Hampshire-- polling 32% to Giuliani's 18% and McCain's 17%. But on primary day, McCain effectively ended Romney's hopes to capture the nomination.

Democrats have come to see a plausible-looking Romney-- doesn't everyone say he "looks" presidential?-- as less and less scary as the GOP primary season rolled out. But most Democrats would still rather run against Gingrich, who they feel could help spark a general Republican Party electoral collapse. In fact they'd so much prefer to have the fatally flawed Gingrich at the top of the ticket that they're siting on the sidelines biting their tongues and crossing their fingers and toes.

There’s no better illustration of how ecstatic Democrats are about Newt Gingrich leading the GOP primary pack than Nancy Pelosi’s strategic silence.

Pelosi knows more about Gingrich than perhaps any other major national political figure. She was a senior Democrat when Gingrich was House Speaker, served on the ethics committee that investigated Gingrich for tax cheating and campaign finance violations, and even cut a 2008 ad with him on the importance of addressing global climate change.

But when TPM asked her to talk a bit about his recent ascent and the possibility that he’ll be the GOP nominee, she mostly demurred.

“I like Barney Frank’s quote the best, where he said ‘I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican party,’” Pelosi said in an exclusive interview Friday. “That quote I think spoke for a lot of us.”

Pelosi didn’t go into detail about Gingrich’s past transgressions, but she tipped her hand. “One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi said. “I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

Pressed for more detail she wouldn’t go further.

“Not right here,” Pelosi joked. “When the time’s right.”

Which is to say that if Gingrich somehow clinches the nomination, there’s one hell of an oppo dump coming.

A word to the wise-- and others-- this election is more than just being about a bunch of careerists with bug egos or the Mormon Church's age old dream of capturing the government. The Republicans, John Dean told us last week, have another dream: tighter and more complete control of the Supreme Court. Republicans feel, he writes, that "Now, when Republicans are so close to fully controlling the Supreme Court, they feel that they simply cannot afford a second Obama term." The expect the Court's oldest-- and most liberal-- member, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (born in 1933) to step down after 2012.

[M]any of my Republican friends who are unhappy with ALL the likely presidential nominees will vote against President Obama for this reason alone, not because of Republican loyalty.  To my amazement, the prospect of capturing the Court would, for them, even trump the high cost of having a numbskull in the Oval Office. (In any event, they believe, perhaps too optimistically, that the numbskulls will be removed during the primaries.)

For those who are not close followers of the current composition of the Court (and the birth dates of its Justices), it breaks down as follows:

The solidly fundamentalist conservative block includes Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Jr. (January 27, 1955), along with Associate Justices Antonin Scalia (March 11, 1936), Clarence Thomas (June 23, 1948), and Samuel Anthony Alito (April 1, 1950).  This group is usually joined (or even, at times, led) by Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (July 23, 1936).  However, Kennedy can also, on occasion, find himself aligning with the Court’s moderates.

The moderates and progressives (there are no true liberals) include, in addition to Ginsburg, Associate Justices Stephen G. Breyer (August 15, 1938), Sonia Sotomayor (June 25, 1954), and Elena Kagan (April 28, 1960).

Thus, as the Court is currently constituted, there are four solid fundamentalist conservatives, plus Justice Kennedy, who is conservative on certain select issues.  Obviously, then, if Justice Ginsburg were to leave the Court, as some Republicans think might happen during the next four years, President Obama would appoint another Justice with the same sort of moderate-to-progressive philosophy held by his prior Court selections: Justices Sotomayor and Kagan.  In contrast, a GOP president would almost surely appoint another fundamentalist conservative Justice.

And another conservative, on this Court, will create an absolute radical majority.

Anyone who examines how Republicans operate when they control the federal government will notice there has been an ongoing and consistent effort to radicalize the U.S. Supreme Court.  GOP presidents are appointing increasingly conservative fundamentalists to the Court.  This appears to be an effort to use constitutional decision- making to accomplish conservative goals that, had they been put before the American electorate in a democratic election, would have been soundly rejected.

Supreme Court watchers like New York City attorney Martin Garbus have it correct in forecasting that the reigning Justices on the conservative-controlled Supreme Court will use their judicial philosophy to roll back the nation to a pre-New Deal world.  That would entail, for example, slowly but steadily removing regulatory controls on independent agencies like the Food & Drug Administration, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency-- just to name those that would be obvious targets.

...Fortunately, Obama—at one time, a constitutional law professor—understands the tremendous impact that the rulings of the High Court can have on the nation.  Thus, the Obama White House did a superb job in filling its two Supreme Court vacancies with Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Although elements of Obama’s electoral base have become disenchanted with the president, the prospect of a radicalized Supreme Court should motivate even the most unhappy former supporter.  The Court alone provides a compelling argument for us all to work as hard as possible to keep this man, as well as his Democratic successors, in the White House.  Frankly, too few Americans understand the impact of the Supreme Court on our way of life.  Only occasional Court decisions truly catch public attention, but rest assured that a predominantly conservative Supreme Court majority can profoundly influence the destiny of the nation.

For reasons I find incomprehensible, conservatives not only wish to stop all progress, but are also hell-bent on unraveling the progress we have made thus far by reversing earlier Supreme Court decisions, or weakening them so that they become meaningless precedents.

In short, as I see it, the GOP’s High Court dream should be everyone else’s nightmare.  So I urge those readers who have not focused on this issue so far, as it pertains to Election 2012, to please wake up and take this situation very seriously indeed.