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worry, on 04 October 2018 - 10:15 PM, said:
Like I said, I think you're both hitting on truths, but nothing is the whole truth except winning for winning's sake, power for power's sake, cruelty for cruelty's sake. Regarding Obdi's argument, your specific quibble with him seems to be missing something imo: the absolute given that Kavanaugh already agrees with every other judge on the list created for Trump by the Federalist Society on 99.99% of conservative goals. So Obdi isn't arguing in a vacuum that Trump's personal desires for pardon powers are alone what matters. It's that those exist on a mountain of other GOP desires that all the judges already agree on. There's 25 nearly identical Crap Sundaes and the Kavanaugh Sundae happens to have the specific brand of cherries on top Trump wants. He really really wants those cherries, so why not do their best to give em to him. Everyone's already getting sundaes anyway.
I understand that.
But this is coming down to a relatively few voices.
For more than half the republican senators, all that matters is the win and wanting the judge. They don't need a cherry on top, they'd vote Kavanaugh anyway, and they would want to rush regardless.
But when you get down to the last few voices, you get to people who would not care at all about Trump's cherry on top.
Corker isn't even on the fence here, but he is leaving the Senate and has given strong denouncements of Trump's leadership. While that may be a hit and run, it also indicates he has little incentive to care at all about a sweetener for the president. If he would not vote for Kavanaugh without that pending case, he wouldn't with it. He and Flake would in some ways much prefer to see Pence in charge, so if you buy the breadcrumbs on why Trump wants this, they'd have a good reason to defy him.
With Flake it gets more interesting because there is at least the possibility he tries to go after Trump in the primary or as a 3rd party bid. And in that case, he really doesn't want to do Trump any favors, but he does have to worry about what the republicans at large think about him, so not only does he want that crap sundae, he doesn't want to be the guy who denied it to the party.
Collins and Murkowski took some convincing even before these allegations because they are at least nominally pro choice Republicans. Collins didn't tilt to supporting him until she got what she considered (but others doubt) was assurance that Kavanaugh considers Roe settled law. The stakes for them are higher in a few ways, because not every replacement Trump could name would give the same assurance, especially if he played politics and put forward a name to rile up the base for the midterms. So they not only have risk of losing the balance of the court for other conservative issues (if they help the democrats block Trump), but putting up an even more anti abortion judge otherwise.
Between that and the assault allegations, I just don't see Trump's personal agenda playing into their thinking. Trump lost Maine to Clinton. And he arguably needs Collins more than she needs him.
And all that is before we get down to how badly Trump really wants this candidate for that reason. Trump wants Kavanaugh through the same way he wanted first Strange then Moore in Alabama. He wants to win. He wants to be seen winning.
And would he like to see his pardon powers expanded? Sure. But as I said, it is debatable whether this would even be the swing vote, and there would be pressure on Kavanaugh to recuse himself regardless ( he has refused to hypothesize on whether he would, but that is in line with how potential justices always treat hypotheticals in committee hearings). And beyond all of that, while Trump likes more power, in order for him to want this so badly that it informs the entire republican strategy, you'd need to establish that there is someone facing charges that could be federal OR state with enough firsthand knowledge and evidence at their disposal to endanger Trump, who he could motivate to non cooperation with a pardon, and whom Federal AND State prosecutors have the evidence to convict. Put more simply, it implies a Manafort has a smoking gun, (and has not already given it over).
And the reason when it was first brought up I went off about the impeachment stuff is that this is an area Democrats have to be very careful in. The default assumption is that Trump has been going so hard after Mueller and the FBI and Rosenstein, etc is because he is afraid, exposed, and trying hard to discredit a smoking gun in advance.
But it is far more likely that there is a lot of smoke, but no smoking gun. That he does not need pardons or further conspiracy to avoid jail or removal, but there could be enough for a democrat house to move and investigate, and he wants his base seeing that as as partisan as possible. In short, getting investigated or impeached could actually become a key plank in his reelection bid.
All of that is why not only do I not buy that Trump desperately wants this guy right now, but most definitely don't buy that he has the current slate of republican senators in lockstep with the agenda to get this done for this reason. The non swing voters would push it this way regardless. The swing voters have more important considerations.
