And you have just highlighted the problem with the current primary election process.
With GW Bush's judicial appointments, conservatism was near the end of a long few decades of shaping the SCOTUS in a conservative direction. (So, of course, Obama isn't voting for P-Marlowe's proposed laws.)
The time was ripe in 2008 for a hugely significant exit from the Scotus that would make possible a 5-4 majority with Kennedy a ringer that would occasionally make votes 6-3. That election was the culmination of decades of preparing the ground.
It was a totally fractured republican party that nominated John McCain, with McCain losing substantial portions of the base to Huckabee and Romney. In contrast with GWBush who had won nearly 2/3rd of the vote in 2000, and who had taken all states except one, we had in 2008 McCain getting roughly 48% of the base. (Romney this year got only 52%)
This says to me that Bush was a consensus while McCain and Romney were tainted by some great divisiveness (squishy moderates?).
2008 and 2012 were also similar in that they held promise of finally turning the Scotus in a 5-4 conservative direction.
What fractured the base? What led to consensus giving way to a 50/50 split? What made it possible for 2 of the potential Scotus seats to be filled between 2008-2012 with radical liberals? I'd say a large portion of the answer was that both McCain and Romney were perceived to be moderate-liberal. They both shied away from social issues, and they both were disengaged from actually fighting for a victory.
In other words, they turned off a large portion of the base.
Reflecting back over GW Bush's terms, there was a time when all of those things mentioned by Marlowe were within the realm of possibility. In 2004, the Republicans won 55 Senate Seats, and were only 5 seats away from a filibuster proof majority.
That final approach to a conservative majority was within reach, and then it was blown up. Was it intentional by the GOP-E, a group that would not want a conservative Scotus?
It's within the realm of possibility.
THX 118
I don’t think I agree with all your conclusions, but you are right about the flaws in the system. But of course, there are flaws in any system. There always have been, and always will be.
On a related topic, how’s this for a counter intuitive theory:
The candidate who would probably have GOVERNED the most conservatively in the past two cycles is one of the most PERSONALLY liberal Republican of all. That’s Rudy. He pledged over and over to use Scalia as his judicial model for appointees. He probably would have gotten his short list from Scalia. When you consider that Rudy was already very conservative on terror and also conservative on taxes and regulations, what forms is the picture of a man who would have GOVERNED in a net conservative manner. Another thing he would never do is back down to the liberals.
So the picture is this: a social liberal who would sub out the social agenda to Scalia types judges, while he fights hard on terror, taxes and regulations and never gives in to the liberal media or others.
Just some thought. He would have been on net far more to the right than weenies like Huckabee and probably Santorum, who live more conservatively but would not have governed that way. I like the way you think, so I thought I’d throw this at you...