68-31 as I’m sure you all know by now. The no show is Kennedy who’s likely on his death bed.
9 dissenters
Mel Martinez (retiring, moron, ex-personal injury lawyer)
Lindsey Graham (lamewad, should be ashamed of himself)
Kit Bond (retiring, swamp-fevered old bull)
Lamar Alexander (lame country clubber)
Judd Greeg (retiring, mediocre establishment type, was ready to serve Obama)
Richard Lugar (boderline RINO in recent years, Old bull, I don’t care for this guy at all)
George Voinovich (retiring, RINO Jerk)
Susan Collins (Liberal RINO)
Olympia Snowe (Liberal RINO)
Candidates
Pat Toomey says aye. “Look I’m a reasonable guy”.
Charlie Crist says nay. “Look how conservative, I am forget that Rubio guy”.
If she was in danger of not making it I suspect a few Rs who voted no would have be cajoled into voting yes. And a couple who probably don’t like her voted yes knowing she was in so they could cast themselves in a positive light with people that should be their enemies.
Based on this I surmise a 60+ seat Republican majority would be needed to actually vote down a rat nominee.
If Obama gets a second term we’re screwed via-a-vis the Supreme court. Scalia and Thomas are getting old as is swing Justice Kennedy. Stevens and Gingsberg would also likely both be replaced with younger liberals.
I think that it is likely that both Stevens and Ginsburg will retire during Obama’s first (and hopefully only) term. I don’t think that Scalia, Kennedy or Thomas would be much of a threat to die or retire if Obama has a second term—especially Thomas, who is younger than Alito, IIRC. The 2012 presidential election may be the first election since 1996 in which the fate of the Supreme Court is *not* on the line.
Of course some of these guys opinions may change when find they themselves up for re-election or facing a contested GOP primary for the nomination. Specter was notorious for that, he would drag his feet on conservative nominees except for every six years when he was up for re-election and had voters watching him in a GOP primary.
That may have been the reason McCain was a NO vote, since he's up for reelection. Usually when McCain and Graham are on opposite sides of an issue, Graham takes the more conservative stance. Odd.
Alexander being a YEA and Corker being a NAY is another odd one, again I would have tagged Alexander as the “more conservative” of the TN duo (though neither one of them is a particularly strong conservative)
Sadly, from what I can see, in most of the states where we could pickup seats it won't do much good on judicial nominees. My guess is that Fiorina, Simmons, Castle, Lingle, Kirk, Pataki, and possibly Ayotte, would have all voted to confirm her (I don't know if Kirk gave a statement, but if he says he wouldn't have, he's flat out lying to win the GOP nomination).
Of course we could always pass a constitutional amendment to allow the voters to weigh-in on judicial appointments, as is almost always allowed on the state level when it comes to judges. That would of course be allowing more “democracy” in our federal government, which a bunch of freepers claim is a terrible thing.