It would be good if the Dems held the Senate although it is like an over-inflated balloon – full of hot air and it makes an unfortunate noise when the air is released.

The Senate vets SCOTUS nominations, so yeah, we want to hold it.

Granted, Scalia will try to hang on for another four years out of the hope that one of Roberts’ seizures will remove him from the Chief Justice spot just in time for President Jeb to nominate Nino for the top job, but Kennedy or even Thomas could be bailing soon due to health reasons.

(By the way: What does it say about Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito that Bush, a man not known to shy away from sticking it to his political foes and doubling down on the conservatism, chose to pick someone from outside the court to be its Chief Justice?)

Tammy was my state representative and my Member of Congress. This isn’t just one more seat for the Democrats, as Herb Kohl would have been. She’ll be one of the very best senators in the Democratic party, a progressive leader like Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, and Elizabeth Warren. I urge everyone to do what you can to help her.

Damn thing won’t let me format a new paragraph here.

Also, Phoenix Woman, what it says about Bush is that he wanted somebody to serve as Chief Justice for a quarter-century or more, and Bush also had a particular problem. Roberts had been nominated to replace O’Connor, and all the prep work for his confirmation had been done. Rehnquist died in early September, one month before the fall term began, and unless Bush could quickly get a Chief Justice nominee confirmed, the senior Associate Justice, John Paul Stevens, would have been Acting Chief Justice. So Bush nominated Roberts, and got him confirmed before first Monday, something that would not have been possible for any other Chief Justice nominee. Bush then nominated Alito to replace O’Connor..

There are four SC justices over seventy:

Ginsberg (79)
Breyer (74)
Kennedy (76)
Scalia (76)

I would expect Ginsberg to retire ASAP, and Breyer would also probably be happy to have Obama appoint a replacement. Maybe Kennedy as well. If so, then Obama would have appointed five justices, and the conservative wing would be the minority (let’s call Obama justices “centrist”, I wouldn’t call any of them particularly liberal).

Scalia would probably want to hold on in case a Republican can get elected in 2016. If, as I suspect, another Democrat gets elected then, Scalia at age 80 would probably hang it up.

“collapse” for Romney—– i dunno, Jon; it’s still close

What does it say about Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito that Bush, a man not known to shy away from sticking it to his political foes and doubling down on the conservatism, chose to pick someone from outside the court to be its Chief Justice?

I believe Alito was appointed to the Court after Roberts.

If Justice Ginsberg were going to retire ASAP, she would have already done so while the Democrats control the Presidency and the Senate. She has a lifetime appointment, and I think she’s going to serve out her term.

Any Justice who wanted to be sure that Obama appointed his or her replacement would have retired in 2010.

Given the Republican resistance to his appointees and his poll numbers, that would have been the sane course.

Besides, who’s in a hurry for Justice Sunstein?

The popular vote is polling close in some places, but the popular vote is irrelevant to the Presidential election anyway.

Just the other day, Huffpo was projecting well over 300 electoral votes for Obama and something like 191 for Romney.

Besides, I don’t trust polls these days. All p0lls have an agenda and delivering unbiased data to the public is not that agenda.

Let’s see. There were 60 in the Democratic Senate Caucus as of January 2009.

Aside from Committee assignments, someone please remind me what huge difference that made.

We heard ad infinitum about Lieberman, Blue Dogs and DINOs, the Sixty Vote Senate Rule (which Democrats could have changed in 2009), etc.

One excuse after the other why a Democratic Caucus of sixty Senators, an overwhelming Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic President combined could not deliver a Democratic agenda to the Democrats, Republicans and indies who had coalesced to vote for them. (And Lieberman never even lost his chair of Homeland Security, the one he really wanted.)

So, someone please remind me why Democrats are powerless with sixty Senators, but Republicans are powerful with forty.

Sometimes, people actually hit what they aim at. I think Democrats have been hitting what they aimed at least since 2006, if not sooner, and definitely since 2009.

In any event, I am unable to get all hopped up anymore about a bare Democratic majority in the Senate. Don’t know why anyone else would, either.

Many of those with Ds after their names are crypto-Rs. harry reid is the best example. LIEberman with an I after his name is an R mole in the D group. o is the leader with a D but is a crypto-R, so he is perfectly happy allowing the Rs to dominate when he could have pushed them over the cliff. I really don’t think that it matters whether more Rs or Ds populate the senate, we will pretty much get R policies pushed on us. The only difference will be that the 60 vote requirement will quietly go away.

I must admit I am shocked that Baldwin is doing so well. Yet in the end what do polls prove, really? One could also interpret the poll saying that Tommy has been out of state for over 12 years and is close to beating someone who has been in office locally for considerable time.