Saturday, July 02, 2005
SCOTUS Strategy
A little "open-source" advice to my friends and allies on the left...
President Bush will not announce his nominee for Justice O'Connor's seat until after he returns from the G8 summit on July 9. That gives us a week to identify and vet a handful of acceptable, moderate names for the seat.
Here's the plan: some of the so-called "liberal interest groups" agree to broadcast - either on their websites or in paid TV/radio ads - the best and most compelling 30-second videos/Flash animations advocating that the President nominate and Senate confirm one of these reasonable, centrist choices.
Let's remember that this president will never nominate the lion-hearted liberal many of us would prefer. We can be realistic and strategically smart at the same time.
We are much stronger when we argue FOR an idea, a person or a law than when we argue against someone else's. We have an opportunity to pre-empt the President's likely divisive choice by showing we are reasonable and willing to consider any of a number of fair and balanced jurists for a seat on the highest court in the land.
I'm sure I'm not the first or only person to propose this idea. And a note about those "interest groups". It can't be the issue-specific groups who do this, like NARAL or HRC. It has to be the broader-based organizations like MoveOn.org, America Coming Together, Democracy for America, People for the American Way, Americans United or the ACLU.
This is not the time to be timid or afraid to try new strategy. If your business, candidate or advocacy organization is looking for vision, please consider hiring M2POWERED.
President Bush will not announce his nominee for Justice O'Connor's seat until after he returns from the G8 summit on July 9. That gives us a week to identify and vet a handful of acceptable, moderate names for the seat.
Here's the plan: some of the so-called "liberal interest groups" agree to broadcast - either on their websites or in paid TV/radio ads - the best and most compelling 30-second videos/Flash animations advocating that the President nominate and Senate confirm one of these reasonable, centrist choices.
Let's remember that this president will never nominate the lion-hearted liberal many of us would prefer. We can be realistic and strategically smart at the same time.
We are much stronger when we argue FOR an idea, a person or a law than when we argue against someone else's. We have an opportunity to pre-empt the President's likely divisive choice by showing we are reasonable and willing to consider any of a number of fair and balanced jurists for a seat on the highest court in the land.
I'm sure I'm not the first or only person to propose this idea. And a note about those "interest groups". It can't be the issue-specific groups who do this, like NARAL or HRC. It has to be the broader-based organizations like MoveOn.org, America Coming Together, Democracy for America, People for the American Way, Americans United or the ACLU.
This is not the time to be timid or afraid to try new strategy. If your business, candidate or advocacy organization is looking for vision, please consider hiring M2POWERED.
