Mitch McConnell’s Trump problem: The nominee undermines SCOTUS obstruction and the GOP majority

[DonViejo]

Donald Trump could force the Senate GOP to choose between its majority and its obstruction of Merrick Garland

SIMON MALOY

Remember Merrick Garland? He’s the appeals court judge Barack Obama nominated nearly five months ago to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. That nomination has been languishing thanks to the recalcitrance of Senate Republicans, who moved to block any consideration of any Obama nominee and argued that (nonexistent) precedent and (nonexistent) principle demanded that the next president be given the honor of picking Scalia’s successor.

The glaringly obvious real reason behind the obstructionism was that the Republican Senate saw an opportunity to have a Republican president nominate the next Supreme Court justice and restore the court’s conservative majority. Back when they first made the arguments for obstruction (i.e. almost immediately after Scalia died in February), it was an open question as to who the Republican nominee for president would be. That question has since been answered: they’re stuck with Donald Trump, and that unfortunate reality has thrown the Republican Senate leadership and the GOP Senate caucus into a politically untenable situation as it tries to maintain its majority while also denying Obama another Supreme Court pick.

You might have noticed, but Donald Trump is in the middle of an extended implosion just two weeks after accepting his party’s presidential nomination. He’s fighting with a Gold Star family, he’s refusing to endorse congressional Republicans in their primary races, and he and his surrogates keep getting caught in increasingly shameless and extravagant lies. This has taken a toll on Trump’s poll numbers – in an alarming development for Senate Republicans, Trump is tanking in states like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire where vulnerable GOP incumbents are up for reelection. The lower Trump sinks in these states, the higher the likelihood the down-ballot candidates will fall with him.

Were Trump to continue along this downward trajectory, Senate Republicans would be faced with a couple of options, neither of which are good. The first is to stick with Trump, white-knuckle it all the way to Election Day, and pray that doing so won’t result in the GOP losing the presidency, the Senate majority, and the next Supreme Court nomination(s).

The other option, if things got bad enough, would be a hard break between Senate Republicans and their presidential nominee. Should Trump’s numbers in battleground states worsen as the calendar drags on, we could see the Senate GOP’s political self-preservation instincts begin to override partisan loyalty:

-snip-

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/05/mitch-mcconnells-trump-problem-the-nominee-undermines-scotus-obstruction-and-the-gop-majority/

[longship]

1. Oh dear! More Drumpf replacement therapy conjectures.

Get this straight! There is no meaningful methodology to replace Drumpf on the ballot as the GOP presidential nominee. That ship has passed. In a very few days, it will have sailed well over the horizon.

All this talk of the GOP replacing Drumpf is utter bollocks.