Obama a Pragmatist, Risk Taker in Choosing Sotomayor
The savvy politician. His choice of the first Latina for the Supreme Court puts Republicans in a tight spot. GOP senators will be reluctant to harshly attack Sotomayor because they could be seen as insensitive to women and Hispanics, two demographic groups that are crucial to GOP success but have trended toward Democrats in recent years. In addition, if the loudest voices attacking her come from bombastic radio host Rush Limbaugh and abrasive, ideology-driven conservatives such as Gingrich and Republican strategist Karl Rove, the Republicans will find it that much harder to expand their base, White House strategists say.
There were other indications of political savvy, such as announcing the nomination while Congress was on recess and out of town, which minimized the immediate blowback.
The nomination will serve as a test run for Obama's political machine. The Democratic National Committee is planning to use the massive database generated by Obama's presidential campaign to drum up support for Sotomayor. Organizing for America, the carryover group that mobilized the grass roots for Obama in 2008, is now installed at the DNC to back Obama's agenda, and the nomination will be an early test of how effective the organization is in rallying the millions of Obama supporters as a cohesive and enduring force.
In the next few weeks, interest groups and constituency organizations will have their turn assessing the nomination and taking sides. And Sotomayor, who has been confirmed by the Senate for two previous judicial appointments, will start making the rounds on Capitol Hill next week to solicit support, shepherded by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and promoted by Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator.
Obama strategists say they hope Sotomayor's credentials and life story will prove so compelling that her nomination will sail through. Her supporters argue that, in the end, it will be very hard to argue against the American dream.
- See Obama's 12 Most Important Decisions.
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Reader Comments
Justice demands that judges be neutral
When they act as tax-paid public servants, judges are supposed to leave outside working hours the way they feel about religion. And about national policy of management of the people's money. They can't vote to have the states or federal government enforce church laws that ban abortion. Those laws exist to COMPEL men and women to produce ongoing generations of tithe-payers. The symbol of Justice, holding scales, must not have anything in either pan to give it false weight. The word "compassion" was used to refer to being able to acknowledge that parenting is hard, and even harder when one parent isn't there to pull their full weight. What bothers me is that there are five judges who were programmed to respect the Code of Canon Law. It lists acts that are called crimes by the Rpman Catholic Church. They all refer to creating, keeping and increasing numbers of tithers. Don't abort because that conception might grow to be a tithe-payer. Don't commit suicide because corpses do not tithe. Don't even try it, for the same reason. This sounds cynical but its from me, a person whose tax bills are higher because churches have tax exemptions.
Kenneth Walsh
Mr. Walsh,
It is funny how every liberal orginization is described as centrist, even with the word progressive in the title.
"president of the centrist Progressive Policy Institute"
This is like saying the president of the centrist Young Republicans orginization. They have self identified that they are liberal, but you cannot. When did journalism die?
Citizens should hope
that Sonia Sotomayor is really "liberal" enough. The big issue is not whether she favors so-called affirmative action. The big issue is whether she favors the concept that people must control corporations and not the other way around.
A corporation as a "person" in the law always has more resources and more lobbying ability than you do. We need judges who will not favor such paper entities just because some other judge did so at some time in the past as a "precedent". Let's hope Judge Sotomayor believes that way.
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