G.O.P. Weighs Political Price of Court Fight

[underpants]

Source: NY Times

In the aftermath of the polarized health care debate, some Republican leaders said they were reluctant to give Democrats further ammunition to portray them as knee-jerk obstructionists. But they also want to harness the populist anger at Mr. Obama’s policies and are wary of alienating their base when they need it most.

Likewise, some conservatives who led the fight against Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation last year said they should learn from mistakes made then, like making grand claims about raising vast sums of money only to find that Republican senators were not as committed to an all-out battle.

The court vacancy was barely raised on Saturday at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, where hundreds of party activists met to strategize for the midterm election campaign. The relative silence on the issue underscored the sensitivity as Republicans decided how to respond to the nomination.

But Republicans could accomplish goals short of actually denying Mr. Obama his choice. A confirmation fight could take up valuable Senate time and complicate the rest of Mr. Obama’s legislative agenda. A top Republican lawmaker said it might give Republicans leverage to negotiate a compromise over regulation of financial markets, so Democrats could clear the decks to take up the nomination this summer.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/us/politics/11supreme.html?hpw

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Some conservatives argued that they had already framed Mr. Obama’s choice. “One clear lesson from the Sotomayor process,” said M. Edward Whelan III, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, “is the political appeal of the traditional understanding of the judicial role, as Sotomayor tried to sound like a judicial conservative in her confirmation hearing.”