President
Obama is approaching the end of his second term, but before he is out of office
he is "running one final campaign". Since the death of former Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia, there has been debate over whether or not Obama
should be able to appoint a new Justice. Although it is clearly stated that it
is within his powers as president to do so, congress is making it incredibly difficult,
specifically the Republican Senators. After enjoying the benefits of having a
republican majority among the Justices, they are not very quick to vote in
Judge Merrick B. Garland, a democrat.
Obama
called in all of the troops to fight this, and is using similar tactics to how
he won the 2012 presidential election. This "strategy call" requires
the work of supporters and activists who want Garland appointed as much as
Obama does, and he and his staff hope that with enough pressure put on congress
by the people and the media, they will give in. The president called back
people that worked on his campaign four years ago, such as Stephanie
Cutter, Amy Brundage, Julianna Smoot, Paul Tewes, and Katie
Beirne Fallon. This team is made up of experienced campaign managers,
chief of fundraising, field operative, legislative director, and aides
that are loyal to the president and are familiar with how he works. What this
team is put in place to do is collect opposition research in response to the
attacks made on Garland, solicit donations from mainly democrats, and develop
advertising that puts Garland in a more positive light than that of which the
Republican senators have been using. Obama is launching this as a full blown
campaign so that the process is made more fair and more accurately represents
the American people. “Starting
Monday, in fact, the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group, will begin
a $2 million television, radio and digital media campaign in New Hampshire,
Ohio, Colorado, North Dakota and West Virginia,” says Carrie Severino. This campaign can work in Obama's favor, but it also has the potential to be a complete waste of funds and backfire completely.
So what
do you think, will this team help Obama to get Judge Garland appointed? Do you
think it's strange that this team is working to collect opposition research in
response to the attacks made on Garland? More importantly, how will the
Republican senators react and respond to this campaign?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/us/politics/obama-campaign-veterans-court-nominee-stephanie-cutter.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
1 comment:
I believe it is a good idea to fight for the nomination. As we discussed in class, turning to the media to support a decision can be either beneficial or detrimental for Obama. However, I love Obama's approach of nominating Merrick Garland, who is a "jurist better known for his meticulous work ethic and adherence to legal principles than for an ideological bent". He deliberately did not choose someone with an ideological bent and I like that idea because the Republican majority in the Senate would have rejected that nominee automatically, so Garland has the possibility of being approved by the Senate since he does not have an ideological bent. The matter of ideology and politics should not be an issue with this nomination. I am frustrated that Congress is giving Obama a hard time about this nomination because if it had been the other way around and there was a republican president and a predominately democratic senate, the republican party would have been up in arms if the democrats blocked the nomination.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/us/politics/obama-supreme-court-nominee.html
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