Scrivener.net

Friday, July 22, 2005


What Supreme Court nomination fights are really about: $$$

I'm not usually a big fan of Dick Morris, Bill Clinton's former polling and campaign consultant. But when he sticks to talking about what he knows, he knows what he talks about.

And as to what drives the bitter, if not rabid, fights over Supreme Court appointments...
CASHING IN ON THE FIGHT

Advocacy groups have been waiting for a fight over the Supreme Court for a decade now and are determined to cash in on the opportunity it affords them to fatten their lists, add to their supporters and pad their revenues

... now that the fat is in the fire, they are eager to mobilize not necessarily out of conviction or principle, but because that's what they do.

Advocacy groups make their money by advocacy. Without a fight, they have no future...

They are in a battle with one another to gather donors, members, names, supporters and signatures.

This dynamic, on both sides of the fight, explains the passion of the groups even as Bush seems to have nominated a candidate moderate enough to be confirmed without a Democratic filibuster.

But you won't hear that from any advocacy groups. Their mission is to polarize and to make money and derive power from the hot coals they rake to life and the conflagration they kindle...

Can the advocacy groups of the left, in their own interest, foment a fight where none exists? Can they induce their proxies who sit in the Senate to see in Roberts a threat to civilization, and seduce them into a battle and a filibuster?

It will be fun to watch them try
. [NY Post]
The point isn't to win, the point is to fight, because the fight draws the money and enhances the political influence.

No political advocate ever increased his/her income or influence by saying "Well, the other side seems quite reasonable about all this, so I'll pass."