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Red-State Democrats Face ‘Terrible’ Bind on Supreme Court Pick
WRAL.com ^ | July 7,2016 | Carl Hulse, New York Times

Posted on 07/07/2018 11:15:12 AM PDT by Hojczyk

WASHINGTON — Democratic senators running for re-election in red states where President Donald Trump remains popular face an agonizing choice over his coming Supreme Court nominee: Vote to confirm the pick and risk demoralizing Democratic voters ahead of the midterm elections, or stick with the party and possibly sacrifice their own seats — and any chance at a Democratic majority in 2019.

The actions of a handful of Senate Democrats struggling to hold their seats in those states — notably Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — will have broad implications for the party at a critical political juncture.

A decision by one or all of them to try to bolster their standing with Republican-leaning voters in their states by backing the president’s nominee would undermine Democratic leaders as they try to sustain party unity. And if their votes put the president’s choice on the court, it could hasten the move to the left by the party’s aggressive activist core, while intensifying the clamor for new, more confrontational leadership.

But if they hold together on a “no” vote, those senators could not only surrender their own seats, but by expanding the Republican majority, they could also narrow the path of Democrats to a Senate majority for years to come by ceding those states to Republicans.

“It is a terrible vote,” Jennifer Duffy, a longtime nonpartisan analyst of Senate races for the Cook Political Report, said about the showdown, which will escalate Monday with the scheduled official announcement of the nominee.

It could not come at a worse time. A final confirmation vote will probably be called just weeks before an election in which Democrats are defending a sprawling battleground, including 10 states carried by Trump,

(Excerpt) Read more at wral.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; US: Indiana; US: North Dakota; US: West Virginia
KEYWORDS: donaldtrump; donnelly; heidiheitkamp; heitkamp; joedonnelly; joemanchin; manchin; obstructionofjustice; redstates; scotus; senate; supremecourt; trump; trumpscotus
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To: centurion316

Hoping Casey , Baldwin, Brown, Smith are placed in a tough spot, right now they are favored very well.


21 posted on 07/07/2018 11:54:05 AM PDT by SMGFan (Sarah Michelle Gellar is on twitter @SarahMGellar)
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To: Hojczyk
If the red-state Dems obey Schumer and vote NO on the nominee, that will seal their fate in November with the voters.

AND, should the nominee be defeated, Trump can simply re-nominate him/her in January with a 55-60 GOP Senate majority and coast to victory.

Either way, Trump (and America) wins. Gotta love it!
22 posted on 07/07/2018 11:54:27 AM PDT by Dan in Wichita
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To: PittsburghAfterDark
RBG...Frau Blücher.


23 posted on 07/07/2018 11:57:56 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Hojczyk

Bummer. Sucks to be them.


24 posted on 07/07/2018 11:58:38 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation has ended!)
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To: Dan in Wichita

I was thinking the same thing. I wonder if the Democrats see it that way. Surely they realize by refusing to confirm Trump’s pick they will guarantee all of Trump’s future next nominees. If they think about it they may all vite to confirm.

This is one case where the Democrats had best surrender the battle so they can live to fight another day. Personally, I hope they go all in.


25 posted on 07/07/2018 12:01:20 PM PDT by Terry Mross (On some threads it's best to go st inraight to the comments.)
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To: centurion316

Heidi is the first Democrat to be predicted to lose
https://insideelections.com/ratings/senate
Only site to predict senate flip.


26 posted on 07/07/2018 12:01:28 PM PDT by SMGFan (Sarah Michelle Gellar is on twitter @SarahMGellar)
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To: Hojczyk

Supporting the Founders Intent regarding the United States Constitution puts People into a terrible bind?

If you live in North Korea it does.


27 posted on 07/07/2018 12:01:35 PM PDT by Kickass Conservative (THEY LIVE, and we're the only ones wearing the Sunglasses.)
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To: Hojczyk

So much for principle.

Lives, fortunes, sacred honor... not for this lot, eh?


28 posted on 07/07/2018 12:02:54 PM PDT by mewzilla (Has the FBI been spying on members of Congress?)
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To: Midwesterner53
Democrat Senators who are running for re-election this year in states that went heavily for Trump need some Trump supporters to win, but they also need Democrats to win. If they vote against confirming Trump's nominee, then they will lose all of the Trump supporters in their states. If they vote to confirm Trump's nominee, they will lose most of the Democrats in their states. Either way, the Republican candidates will win.

There is a red wave coming.


29 posted on 07/07/2018 12:04:46 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation has ended!)
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To: Jeff Chandler
I think the Democrats and the Old Guard have serious problems over the next 6 months and then leading up to 2020. First the never Trumps and GOPe are announcing and leaving the RP. Thought most left years ago. The Tea Party, you know the one John McCain and Lois Lerner used the IRS on to destroy 10 years ago are taking over the hollowed out RP. What they wanted 10 years, they are getting so much better today. The cancers are gone, Trump is in control but better yet, they have the structure, the bench, the high ground. They are changing the RP. OK so where do the Old Guard go? To the DP?

Let's look at the DP for a moment. The DSA won a house seat in Bronx and the MSM is proclaiming her the new DP. Then there is Bernie and his democratic socialists ready to run in 2020. The rank and file of the DP look and say, I am not a DSA or communist. They look around, they want jobs, lower taxes, peace, they want a wall and they want law and order. Everyday another wakes up and says I am not what the DP is, I am what Trump is. They are quietly leaving however they are leaving.
Warm up the popcorn machine, the next two years will be lively.

30 posted on 07/07/2018 12:07:57 PM PDT by Kozy (new age haruspex; "Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth.")
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To: centurion316

President Trump: “Hey Joe, old buddy! You know that vote for the Supreme Court is coming up about a month before the mid-terms, right? How about this deal. If you vote for the nominee and get booted out yourself, there just happens to be an ambassadorship to New Zealand that would suit you just fine.”

“But if you vote against, I’m going to have rallies in W. Va. twice a week torching your ass. Whadda ya say, Joe?”

Manchin: “Gulp”.


31 posted on 07/07/2018 12:08:11 PM PDT by SnuffaBolshevik
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To: Hojczyk
"... It could not come at a worse time. ... "

Sun Tzu says the side with the stronger reason to fight and more vibrant leadership has the advantage ... the so called moral law.

This law appears to not just express itself in the measurable physical realm, but also as luck or fortune.

We call it 'The Trump Curse.' Generally it's expressed from the perspective of the other side (i.e. curse on them rather than our fortune or luck) because usually the aggression is initiated from that side, so it appears as blowback on them, a curse on their action.

That's not to say Trump is only lucky, but in addition to many of the benefits of his overt action and strategy, there does seem to be an element of certain things falling into place unplanned. May it continue. And that's also not to say that Trump and small c conservatives aren't getting attacked from every side ... we are and he is ... but luck and fortune are certainly not our enemy in the past couple years.

The corollary is that when the political right was led by the spineless and unmoral, not only did their strategy fail, the chips unrelated to strategy seldom fell in their favor, or really anyone's.

Since the left is Godless, they can not acknowledge anything that can't be measured. So they are trapped in their thinking, which can only manipulate representations of measurable, cognizable things.

An old martial arts mentor, speaking of the spiritual, used to say "you can't see the invisible with the visible" ... meaning, there is no knowing the invisible with the mere six sense holes (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body (feeling), mind/cognition (mind is a sense in that thought system))

So I hope the left stays blind to the invisible. There will be much less suffering in the world that way, and probably why representations of the strongest of mythological evil entities always seem to have SOME sense of the invisible, some magic (black), but not transparent magic. It's impossible to see clearly and also be the source of suffering. There may be pain which is simply life, but not suffering.

So God is not just beyond thinking, God is beyond mind. That doesn't circumscribe God, but does touch on what He is not circumscribed by, where we can't look.

But alas, it's beautiful out and I should be outside!

32 posted on 07/07/2018 12:10:37 PM PDT by tinyowl (A is A)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

I so hate that we are red and they are blue. Don’t the dims want to be red like our side prefers to be blue?


33 posted on 07/07/2018 12:11:49 PM PDT by xp38
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To: Husker24

“...They will vote party over people every time, count on it....”

Absolutely. The UniParty is EVERYTHING to these azzhats. It’s their source to untold riches. They go in almost broke and come out filthy rich from the corruption and legalized theft that is the world-renown trademark of Washington DC.
The UniParty protects it’s own. It will bail these evil, corrupt bassturds out somehow; probably by using it’s GOPe arm to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory....once again, like they always do. As far as the UniParty is concerned, the People (the Unwashed Masses, that’d be us) are nothing but dumb, docile cattle. We are nothing to them except dumb fat cash cows that are to be milked and milked, until there’s nothing left.....that is, until Trump came along.


34 posted on 07/07/2018 12:16:00 PM PDT by lgjhn23 (It's easy to be liberal when you're dumber than a box of rocks.)
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To: BenLurkin

Vote for the SCOTUS pick and if you win your election, change parties.


35 posted on 07/07/2018 12:16:22 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Proud member of the DWN party. (Deplorable Wing Nut))
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To: tinyowl

They should have switched parties a long time ago..


36 posted on 07/07/2018 12:16:27 PM PDT by Hojczyk
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To: Hojczyk

Terrible, just terrible.


37 posted on 07/07/2018 12:22:23 PM PDT by Luke21 (The Hill sucks.)
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To: Hojczyk

They’re hurt either way. Vote ‘no’ they alienate a majority of the electorate in Conservative states and by voting “yes’ the Democrat base will be so outraged that many will vote Green or some other goofy party.


38 posted on 07/07/2018 12:22:23 PM PDT by Herman Schwartz
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

I would argue that given the awful state of affairs, Manchin knows there cannot be any litmus test. No nominee will ever state unequivocally the position on abortion in advance.

The candidate will declare that the ruling will come on the facts of the actual case and how the law applies.

To require a litmus test is a false position because it is known in advance there will never be one.

Having argued that, it is a very lame straddle that is unlikely to influence female “independents” or disgruntled miner wives and mothers to abandon the Trump forward movement in return to a bad old past. With coal mines operating and the severance tax again funding the State treasury, there is money for schools once again.

I would argue further that his days are past. The future in West Virginia does not favor a “I’m everything “ old school democrat


39 posted on 07/07/2018 12:26:15 PM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... In August our cities will be burning))
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To: Husker24

“They will vote party over people every time, count on it.”

The most factual comment on this thread thus far.


40 posted on 07/07/2018 12:27:04 PM PDT by redfreedom (Gun control has proven success! (Such as in Hitler's Germany & Stalin's Russia))
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