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Why Obama Should Nominate Cruz for SCOTUS
As we were watching the CNN town hall, a friend of mine suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that Obama should nominate Ted Cruz. At first I laughed, and then I started thinking about it. This isn’t really that far-fetched an idea.
Obama already said he’d consider an elected official. Well, Cruz checks that box.
With a GOP Senate you gotta get someone in there who can get confirmed. Who better than Cruz? Senate Republicans will never have to worry about a guy they don’t like anymore because he’ll be out of their hair. Obama can present it as a deferential carrot to the GOP Congress in return for something else he may want or need.
To the extent that Cruz has a good chance of beating Hillary, it would help her electoral prospects. Obama won’t have to worry about the next guy blowing up everything he built. Since Trump and Cruz are going after similar voters, it could even help Trump when he picks up Cruz supporters. This would get really juicy if Cruz endorsed Trump on the way out. Weirder things have happened. They had a bromance last year, and it’s not impossible to rekindle the flame.
Another good reason is that this would be a great deal for Cruz. He can either roll the dice on his less-than-50-percent chance of winning the White House, where reason tells us he’ll accomplish very little of what he’s flippantly promised on the trail — abolishing the IRS, repealing Obamacare, etc. In fact, he could arguably do more from the Court than he could in the White House. Plus, he loves to argue and this would be a lifetime dream come true. He’d be even more of a celebrity than Scalia.
If you’ve made it this far, then you can see how quickly this could become a not-so-weird scenario. What could go wrong? Except Hillary losing, of course, but that’s a risk you take.
He would do this if he really wanted to undermine Herself without indicting her. I don’t see him doing this, but would love it if he did. A bipartisan act, at last.
I would rethink the entire Obama legacy. Ok, not really, but still, count me in!
It would also snub Republicans since they’d then have to turn around and confirm Barrack Obama’s nomination when they had already sworn not to.
I suspect Obama will nominate a moderate republican, so half the Republicans in the Senate will feel obligated to join the democrats, and he can snub the GOP again.
As I discussed this with my colleague I realized that Obama could approach Justice Ginsburg and persuade her to step down as part of a deal with the Senate. Cruz takes Scalia’s seat and Obama could line up a guy to replace Ginsburg. It’s a deal everyone could take because they keep their seat on the court.
How many votes would Cruz get in a senate confirmation? Probably less than 10……
Your friend & I had the same thought:
http://ricochet.com/art-nearly-predicts-life-or-lets-put-the-moss-family-cats-on-the-supreme-court/
Sorry if the link isn’t working.
Great post! I certainly didn’t mean to steal your thunder (though you were there first) but you laid the groundwork. This shows that it’s not as hair-brained as it seems. It becomes less crazy the more you think about it.
I’m not sure. With Cruz on the SC, they wouldn’t have to deal with him as colleague or president. It’s almost the perfect solution.
I think Mitch would stuff the ballot box to get rid of Cruz.
There’s just the minor problem that Cruz won’t vote the way Obama wants him to on anything…
Then there’s the other problem that Cruz withdrawing from the presidential race probably ultimately boosts Rubio, and Obama probably doesn’t want to push a Rubio-Clinton race.
Other than that, it’s a slam dunk.
I think that Obama will indeed try to appoint someone who is sort of in the middle.
The thing is that a “moderate” in Obama’s worldview is still a hard-ribbed communist in ours.
Please, Senate, HOLD!
Precisely why we all shoulda gotten behind Carly.
She woulda beaten Hilliary to a pulp, which woulda put her (Carly) in a position to elevate Cruz to the Court for 30-40 years. And for 8 years she woulda shrunk and fixed the government in ways we only dream about.
Marco woulda been her veep, making her election a landslide (Fiorina/Rubio woulda killed), and he woulda learned how to be an executive for 8 years before becoming POTUS himself. That woulda given the GOP 16 consecutive years of the White House, and just imagine how many SCOTUS Libs we coulda replaced.
I cannot believe how badly the GOP electorate and brain(sic)trust have fumbled this presidential campaign. We shoulda been smarter.
I’ve wanted Cruz to be on the Court for sometime. So I am all for this proposal. He’d be much more effective there than in the Senate or as President. And since his Senate colleagues see him as an obstruction in the Senate they’d be all to happy to be rid of him.
As for what I think Obama will do. I think that he’ll nominate Loretta Lynch for the seat. And then when she is held up, the Democrats will use it as an election issue by saying that “those evil Republicans held up the confirmation of the first Female African American nominee to the Supreme Court.”
Bereket,
Somewhere deep in your soul you are holding onto the hope that Barack Hussein Obama will finally find himself and do something for the country instead of against it.
I don’t fault you for holding onto such good spirited hope. I can’t see him doing anything but what he has been doing for 7 years. Finding the most vicious way to do as much damage to America as he can. Expect the worst possible nomination.
Regards,
Jim
Hold out, elect Rubio. Rubio can select Cruz.
Crisis over, nation rescued. We work hard to replace Cruz with another constitutional conservative in the Senate.
Nation turned over to La Raza, you mean.
Yes, and it helps clear most lanes for…..wait for it…..NR and Main Feed’s favorite candidate….savior of about 35% of the party…Marco Rubio!
Good Lord.
‘Asteroid hurdles towards earth….may be an opening for Marco’
‘Pandemic sweeps across the land…perhaps Marco is resistant’
‘If all candidates drop out, surrender all their campaign funds…Marco may have a path’
Cruz would be a great justice but the other catty girls in the Senate that’s he’s offended would never vote for him.
I don’t think I could stand the next year of “you owe me” just because of a single act.
It would defuse the “natural born citizen” thing, for this time.
Never going to happen. The left doesn’t want to keep the status quo, they want to completely obliterate the opposition. Obama has an opportunity to completely unbalance the Supreme Court to his side. He will take that opportunity and run as far as he can with it. And based on how little intestinal fortitude the Senate Republicans have, we will probably see someone who is more than a little left of the middle be put on the court.
If you are Obama, what’s not to like about making the court completely veer left using the seat of the most conservative justice in a long time. How sweet would that be for him.
Then Cruz could accuse him of being a liar again. After all, Mitch did promise that no Obama nominee would be confirmed.
They’d be happy to get rid of him and also relieved to have him on the court. The problem they have with him is he makes them look bad, not that he is bad.
When a strategy works for someone for decades he will stick with it, like Freddie in Splash.
Obama will racialize and sexualize every controversy. Essential to black turnout and womyn power ploys in November. Vital to keeping politically wary and socially fearful whites on the non-racist reservation.
Hence Lynch.
Perhaps with the added benefit of allowing the new AG to delay any consideration of bringing an HRC indictment until after the election.
Real power play would be Lynch’s approving an FBI recommendation for indictment, in which case her straight shooter rep would be immense and nomination hard to forestall.
What a twofer for Obama there.
Listening to Andrew Klavan talk about the GOP needing to unite behind one candidate to overcome Trump, this same thought occurred to me. Have Rubio cut a deal with Cruz so Cruz drops out, endorses Rubio with the expressed intention to nominate Cruz to SCOTUS if he’s elected.
Un-American!
If Cruz is as disliked as reported, every single Republican would vote for him as 1) Cruz does share their Supreme Court judicial philosophy for the most part and 2) They would be elated to get him out of the Senate.
This will happen over Lindsey Grahams dead body.
I have never felt so much like Inigo Montoya. I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Bargaining is for losers. Barack Obama is on a seek and destroy mission of all things conservative. He doesn’t need anything from the GOP Congress, but he does enjoy watching it twist in the wind.
“Deference” is not his modus operandi. It surprises me when right wingers don’t recognize that “blood and chaos” of a confirmation fight during a critically important election year aren’t just tolerable to Obama — they’re desired!