Where do the votes stand for Miers
An answer may be in the poll numbers. Looking at the approval ratings of the 100 senators, one can see that a Supreme Court nominee is not going to adversely affect approximately 80% of them. So, they can relatively do as they please. For the bottom 20%, the Harriet Miers nomination can mean a few votes if their early position moves the approval rating positive or negative. For those up for re-election in 2006, like Santorum in PA, their reluctance to stand either way makes political sense.
In this case it is prudent to wait for the hearings and see how the nominee performs. They have a political stake in this nomination as do all Republicans. If she performs well, as President Bush expects, then those senators who may have prematurely joined the anti-Miers chorus, will have a lot of political capital to lose.
I for one support President Bush’s nomination and think it is time for Republicans to allow the Senate to do its job and for Harriet Miers to show us she can live up to the President’s high opinion of her.
And I call upon all Republicans who are worried about the party’s prospects this year and next year, and are considering abandoning the President, to remember the words of our party’s greatest leader, who spoke words as pertinent to Republicans today as they were to the Republicans he addressed on a June evening in 1858 – “The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not fail.”
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