Marc

I am just emerging after being very sick this weekend: fever, chills, stomach flu, the whole thing. I know something has been going around, but I am convinced that my illness was political in origin. My immunity was already weak after the Ohio and Texas primaries, but then I was dealt a deathblow on Friday when Justice Antonin Scalia was honored with the James Madison prize in a ceremony on my campus. Scalia’s presence caused the blood in my veins to run cold and undoubtedly contributed to my overwhelming nausea this weekend.

Scalia’s visit reminded of how much is at stake in the 2008 election. We have written on this blog before about the Congressional, Senate, gubernatorial and state elections that will be affected by this Presidential race. But we haven’t talked about the Supreme Court.

The current Court is divided, deciding many key cases 5-4, but it is not balanced. Balance implies that there are liberal and conservative judges on the Court. There aren’t. Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer are consistently to the left of their current colleagues, but none is as liberal as Thurgood Marshall or even Republican appointed Earl Warren. There is no true liberal voice on the court, so there is no balance.

But here is the really scary part. The left-leaning Justices are the ones most likely to need replacing during the next 4 to 8 years. Conservatives Roberts, Thomas and Alito are all in their fifties. They are likely to sit on the court for the next 30 years. Stevens is nearly 90, Ginsburg is 75 and swing vote Anthony Kennedy is in his 70s. It is very likely that the next President will appoint somewhere between 1 and 3 new members of the court and that all of those replacements could happen from “the left” of the court.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are locked in a death battle that makes John McCain stronger every day. Although Hillary Clinton is losing, her campaign and the media keep insisting that she is tied. She is now talking about choosing Barack as her VP as though she is the new presumptive nominee. And she is suggesting that McCain would make a better Commander-in-Chief. This bloodletting motivates and mobilizes the Republican base and gives time to the RNC to build up local party organizations while Democrats lose time battling each other. Each step reduces the likelihood of a Democratic win the fall and makes it more likely that McCain will have a chance to enhance the Court with young, conservative Justices.

Ouch, Marc, I am turning this over to you now. Just writing this makes me have to vomit again!

Melissa