Ethics

The Politics of the Sotomayor Pick

By Ed Brayton

Leaving aside the substantive issues for a moment, let's look at the purely political aspects of the Sotomayor nomination. Let's start with the obvious: Obama has put the Republicans in a bit of a pickle. He knows very well that the Republicans were fully prepared to attack anyone he nominated as a radical, out of the mainstream, crazy liberal activist. Now they have to make that attack against the first Hispanic woman ever to be nominated for the court.

Hispanics are becoming a major power in this country and they have so far gone a bit back and forth. Bush had solid support from Hispanics in 2000, but Obama got them by a wide margin in 2008. Keeping them in the Democratic fold is important for Obama, as is wooing them back for the Republicans. Attacking Sotomayor is going to make it a lot tougher for them to do that.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 27, 2009 (boomark / email).