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Sotomayor Hearing Live Blog, Day 2, Blog 2

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Supreme Court
Posted on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 10:09:05 AM EST
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Senator Whitehouse should provide something of interest.

Apparently, being boring and uninteresting is the Dem strategy today. So I am going to return to the politics of the Sotomayor hearings. Matt Yglesias writes:

Consider the case of Jeff Sessions (R-AL). We’re talking about a guy who’s too racist to get confirmed as a judge, but just racist enough to win a Senate seat in Alabama. And it’s not because Alabama is a lilly white state. With 65 percent of its electorate white, and 29 percent of its electorate African-American, Alabama is much more demographically favorable to the Democrats than is the country at large. But while McCain pulled 55 percent of the white vote nationwide he scored 88 percent of white vote in Alabama. And this is what you tend to see in the Deep South, white Americans exhibiting the kind of high levels of racial solidarity in voting behavior that you normally associate with African-Americans in the US political context.

(Emphasis supplied.) It is certainly possible that in the South and in places like Utah and Idaho, the GOP can get 95% of the whote vote. But that will not provide the GOP any political benefit. I'll explain on the flip.

Because of the Voting Rights Act, there are districts across the country, but in particular in the South, that are "majority-minority" districts where minorities are highly likely to win the seat (think about the indicted William Jefferson in Louisiana. While he lost his seat in 2008, his GOP opponent is almost certainly going to lose the seat to a Democrat in 2010.)

Running up the score among white voters in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and other parts of the South will not get the GOP any more seats (or electoral votes in a Presidential election.)

Unless the GOP can convince young white voters across the Nation and especially, young white women, to adopt their views on race, sexual orientation and women's rights (a very unlikely prospect imo) - then outside of the South - the Sessions KKK approach is going to lose votes for the GOP everywhere else but the South and other GOP bastions like Idaho, Wyoming and Utah.

It simply can not work. So why do it? Because the Republican Party has become a rump party unable to escape the grasp of its racist, bigoted, hateful base.

Since 2004, I have trumpeted a political strategy I labelled a Lincoln 1860 strategy. Now more than ever, that strategy is a winning one for the Democrats. And Republicans are playing their part.

Senator Kaufman asks about application of economic thoery to antitrust law. Sotomayor simply gets the answer wrong - whe says the Court has not. That is flat wrong. Clearly she is not well versed in antitrust law.

Speaking for me only

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    Sotomayor Hearing Live Blog, Day 2, Blog 2 | 44 comments (44 topical)

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    Strange line of questioning (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by MO Blue on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 10:31:37 AM EST
    by Whitehouse on limits to executive powers and warrants.

    Whitehouse voted in favor of giving the executive branch more powers and weakened the 4th amendment rights of U.S. citizens when he voted for the last FISA.

    Well, a lot of Dems voted (5.00 / 5) (#7)
    by Cream City on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 10:39:12 AM EST
    for expanding the president's powers, including the current president, and thus undermining the Constitutional rights of you and me.  So Whitehouse is only one of many who have a lot of 'splaining to do -- and only one of many who made it easier for me to turn Independent.  I guess I ought to be grateful for the awakening that FISA vote meant for me, huh?

    Parent
    The FISA vote was one of the reasons (5.00 / 3) (#14)
    by MO Blue on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 10:50:07 AM EST
    I too became an Independent and choose not to vote for Obama.

    IMO the primary responsibility of each and every member of Congress is to defend the Constitution from against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If I cannot trust them to honor their oath of office, how can I trust them on other issues? To make it perfectly clear, I think that every member of Congress who voted for the last FISA broke their oath of office.

    Parent

    Leahy (5.00 / 1) (#17)
    by jbindc on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 10:53:09 AM EST
    has a camera and is taking pictures of the photogrpahers taking pictures of him.

    He's an avid photographer. (5.00 / 1) (#20)
    by Tony on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 10:57:38 AM EST
    He can often be seen taking pictures before and after hearings.  Usually has a camera with him.

    Parent
    Hmm (5.00 / 1) (#18)
    by CST on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 10:53:14 AM EST
    Convincing "young white women, to adopt their views on race"

    that makes me laugh...  although there is certainly such a thing as a love/hate relationship

    They're not just appealing to the base -- (5.00 / 3) (#31)
    by esmense on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 11:31:34 AM EST
    they are the base. When Coburn told Sotomayer she'd have some "'splainin to do" that wasn't a calculated gambit aimed at gaining the approval of bigoted constituents, that was a bigoted, sexist idiot at his ease, expressing himself in a totally unselfconscious manner.

    I can't help but think that as racist as these guys are, that, in terms of their increasing inability to hide their socially unacceptable attitudes from the greater public, it is actually their sexism that has created the greatest problem. I think if Sotomayer was male, they would be minding their tongues a little bit more. But condescending to and bullying women is so second nature to them (and so socially acceptable) that they don't even recognized when they have also stepped way over the line racially.


    He actually said that?? (none / 0) (#38)
    by gyrfalcon on Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 12:16:45 PM EST
    Those words, "some 'splainin' to do"?  Oh. My. God.

    Parent
    Yes. I'm afraid he really did (