When Elena Kagan was confirmed as Solicitor General, she only garnered 61 votes. That’s a little misleading, though, because if every Democrat had voted she would have had 65 votes for confirmation. Sens. Coburn (R-OK), Collins (R-ME), Gregg (R-NH), Hatch (R-UT), Kyl (R-AZ), Lugar (R-IN), and Snowe (R-ME) all voted for her, but, interestingly, Arlen Specter did not. That vote will haunt Specter because he is facing a registered Democrat-only electorate on May 18th, and his opponent Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) will be able to hammer Specter for either opposing Kagan’s nomination (unlikely) or for flip-flopping. How can she not be good enough to serve as Solicitor General but just fine for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court? How could she be good enough for extreme right-wingers like Tom Coburn and Jon Kyl and not good enough for Arlen Specter?
Not that Obama considered (or should have considered) Specter’s fate when he chose Kagan, but the result is basically a bayonet in the back at a time when Specter is fading badly in the tracking polls (even the loathsome Rasmussen has Sestak surging ahead). I am going to predict now that Joe Sestak will win the primary in Pennsylvania, and the Kagan nomination is what sealed Arlen’s fate. He will join Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah as a lame-duck senator. Unlike Bennett, however, Specter has the added humiliation of having switched parties to try to stave off defeat and then having gone down in defeat anyway. That’s not the way any senator wants to cap off a long career.
If this happens, the media will not be able to resist the narrative that the extreme wings of both parties are throwing out the moderates. But it will be a bit misleading. Bennett probably would have won a true Republican primary, so while its true that extremists threw him out, it’s not necessarily true that the Republican Party of Utah has lurched to the right. And while Specter is certainly a moderate, he’s spent the last forty years beating Pennsylvania Democrats in elections. It’s hardly a lurch to the left for Keystone Democrats to oppose the author of the Magic Bullet Theory. There are differences and similarities between the ousters of Bennett and Specter.
By most measures, Bob Bennett is a very conservative senator (Progressive Punch ranks him the 20th most conservative member of the upper body). But he has a history of working in a bipartisan manner and of seeking to find compromises to deal with our nation’s most pressing issues. In this, he had a lot in common with both Arlen Specter and Teddy Kennedy. In fact, he had more in common with Kennedy, who also found ways to compromise without compromising his values. Specter has made a career of compromising his values. His record is so bad, in fact, that it’s difficult to assign any values to Specter that he isn’t willing to compromise. If the Democrats of Pennsylvania fail to nominate Specter as their nominee for another six-year senate term, it will be this lack of character that explains the vote, not some sudden burst of purity policing. And, while Sestak has the support of many progressive groups in Pennsylvania, he isn’t seen by most people here as a progressive politician. At best, he’s a conventional Democrat. Because he’s pro-choice, he’s left of center within the state’s party, but not by much. What’s almost certain is that Sestak (and whoever replaces Bennett) will be less inclined to reach across the aisle. That’s good and bad. It’s good to have politicians who stand for something. It’s bad to increase the polarization in the Senate because the rules of the Senate require that the two parties operate with a degree of good faith that is currently absent.
frankly, as much as i’m leery of a senator Sestak, I DO enjoy seeing the PA Democratic establishment, who went out of their way to avoid a primary, get a thumb in the eye from the voters.
And I guess this gets back to the “ungovernable” stuff: they haven’t exactly shown the best judgement.
Yeah, just wish it was Pennacchio instead of Sestak doing the eye-poking.
pennachio’s a progressive. ipso facto, not a chance.
the democratic party hates its base, especially the left wing of the party. Why would they ever nominate someone like Pennachio? He’d upset the applecart (and probably the gravy train).
It’s not just the party establishment though. Consider how many Pennsylvania Democrats are (or were) anti-choice: Murtha, Altmire, Kanjorski, Doyle, Holden, Dahlkemper, Onorato, Casey Sr., Casey Jr., Wagner.
And Tom Ridge and Specter are pro-choice, so party labels don’t mean shit in this state.
we live in a creaky old right-wing state. It’s sad. it’s why i want to leave.
From thomas.gov (can’t link) Specter’s objection to Kagan:
Seems like PA is one of the more theocrat-friendly states, which looks weird from the outside. It has two big cities, is East Coast, has a large non-white population, yet remains a purple state compared to places like Illinois and even WI, which should fit in the purple box more comfortably. Is it that Philly and Pittsburg are not liberal enough to balance the rural/suburban vote?
it’s that we have Appalachia running dead thru the middle of our state and that Pittsburgh isn’t that big, and the western part of the state is labor/conservative (Reagan Democrats), and that our Catholic population is huge.
Sorry, but this has been bugging me for a while. Why does the left continue to insist that we’re the Democratic party’s base? I mean, if that were so, why are Obama’s approval ratings so high among Democrats? Most people on the left would probably give him a C or so if we graded him, and yet his approval say more like a B+. I’d say that we’re roughly half of the base, possibly even less.
We’ve acquired so many independents that we’re really not the base anymore. People are moaning about the GOP doing w/e their base tells them, but really, the only people left in the Republican party IS their base.
your base is the people who always vote for you (when they vote), not independents or the groups that put you over the top.
“Sorry, but this has been bugging me for a while. Why does the left continue to insist that we’re the Democratic party’s base?”
Black folks ask that question all the time.
I consider myself pretty far left, but would still give Obama a B+ overall. If lefties would give Obama a C what would they give Clinton? To me, Obama has delivered a lot of disappointments, but has so far not done the kind of active damage that Clinton did. So compared to what?
near the end of the Clinton administration, “you got to dance with them what brung you”.
For us progressives, Obama is the one that brought us out of the Bush years and into the White House. (Yes, I know, we brought him too.)
I voted for him knowing that:
*he had positioned himself in the center of the Democratic caucus during his years in the US Senate, *he had the weakest health care proposal of the major Democratic candidates in 2008,
*knowing that he planned to expand the war in Afghanistan,
*knowing that cutting deals with conservatives was a trademark of his in the Illinois Senate, and when he was at Harvard Law School.
Having nominated Sonia Sotomayor, Obama’s now nominated Elena Kagan—who clerked for Abner Mikva and Thurgood Marshall, who hasn’t been a career judge, and who would be the 3rd woman on the Supreme Court (the first time that’s ever happened). She might not be my first choice, but I’m not going to fight him about it.
@ DaveW, am I right that FDR was responding to a specific progressive demand—labor law or, what became the Wagner Act—when he said, “Now go out and make me do it”?
The way leaders like John L. Lewis, Walter Reuther, and Sidney Hillman made FDR do it was by organizing and picking fights with enemies like Ford Motor Company, and General Electric.
Rather than kvetch about which center-left judicial appointment Obama should have made, can we put our energies into picking fights with BP, Goldman Sachs, et al.?
The FDR quote is one of those old and oft-repeated stories with any number of versions — which is why the tagline is left vague. The version I favor is that he was responding to a laundry list by Frances Perkins (or Walter Reuther or somebody else).
Like much of what Obama has done so far, the Kagan appt. doesn’t look like the left-moving breakthrough we’d like, but it will be OK, almost certainly. I don’t think anybody can deny that the left that thinks it’s the base of the Dem Party has failed to set a set of policy standards to try and hold Obama to, so we mostly just sit and impotently bitch and sound like Mitch McConnell.
.
During her confirmation hearing for solicitor general, Ms. Kagan agreed with a questioner that someone suspected of helping to finance Al Qaeda should be subject to battlefield law — indefinite detention without a trial — even if he were captured in a place like the Philippines rather than in a physical battle zone.
Kagan unsuccessful arguing “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission”
Kagan made her first appearance at the Supreme Court as solicitor general Sept. 9, 2009, unsuccessfully arguing Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which opened the way for unlimited corporate funding of political broadcasts in elections.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
when, not if it happens…the media will not be able to resist the narrative that the extreme wings of both parties are throwing out the moderates…which will be demonstrably false.
if anything, he was purged by the republicans when it became apparent that he couldn’t win the nomination. leading him to pull a lieberman-esque stunt by turning into a democrat. so sorry arlen, it doesn’t look like folks are buying it.
l really like bower’s take on this turn of affairs today, especially the title:
The wanker effect takes hold…
that pretty well sums up arlens’ career, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving fellow.