It could be we've just seen the first head-to-head battle of the
2008 GOP primary, and John McCain has bested Bill Frist. An
analysis by the AP:
A bipartisan deal could undercut Frist's political standing and his remaining months as Senate leader.... Among the Republicans seeking a compromise on the judicial nominees is a potential 2008 rival to Frist - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Last week, it was McCain who appealed to his Republican colleagues at a closed-door meeting to compromise with the Democrats, a notion Frist rejected.
I know, the conventional wisdom is that McCain is seen as too moderate to get the GOP nod (though he'd easily win the general election if he did). But the CW has often been surprisingly, stunningly wrong.
By the way, did you notice that the judicial compromise left the
Democrats with the right to squelch two of Bush's judicial
nominees, and who got squelched? It was not the most anti-gay of
the group, William H. Pryor Jr., nominated for the 11th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals, who now is on his way to confirmation.
Says planetout.com:
As Alabama attorney general in 2003, Pryor urged the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the rights of states to outlaw consensual gay sex, comparing laws against gay sex to laws against pedophilia and bestiality in a friend-of-the-court brief.
Instead, the two deemed beyond the pale are, first, former Interior Department solicitor William Myers, nominated for the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals, who, Newsday reports, is vigorously opposed by environmentalists for what they say was an anti-environment agenda at Interior and as a private lawyer and lobbyist for cattle and mining interests. And second, Henry Saad, nominated for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who has invoked the ire of Senate minority leader Harry Reid for reasons not all that clear, other than Reid's insinuations about "a problem" he said is in the nominee's "confidential report from the FBI" (it may be that Reid's pseudo-McCarthyite tactics against Saad boxed him into a corner he couldn't get out of).
I guess when it comes to beltway clout, the Sierra Club beats out the Human Rights Campaign. Maybe HRC should demand a refund from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee!
Update: The Christian
Science Monitor analyzes what the filibuster deal means for the
2008 presidential race:
Among those who appear to be actively considering a run, Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona emerges a winner, analysts say.... The agreement on judges "certainly burnished his credentials as an independent thinker and someone who's a problem-solver," says John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron.
McCain's biggest drawback is that his shoot-from-the-hip style makes him unpopular with religious conservatives. But he opposes abortion, and could become palatable to that GOP bloc if he appeared the strongest Republican to face the Democratic nominee, analysts say.
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