You have to do the math, Dog. (Understand, I am talking about Bush nominating a QUALIFIED, SCANDAL-FREE nominee.) Well, I have done the math:
1. Chafee: the most likely turncoat, but by no means a definite vote against.
2. Snowe: she's a follower, not a leader. Might vote against if the liberal Maine press hounded her enough.
3. Collins: same thing, but less likely than Snowe to vote against.
4. Warner: slim possibility that he would vote against.
5. Specter: a slimmer possibility, and actually not likely given the riot act that was read to him when he was allowed to take the Chairmanship. (And remember, Specter was NOT part of the "Gang of Fourteen")
That's five (5) votes against, and only IF ALL FIVE go against a President of their own party to vote against a qualified nominee simply because the DEMOCRATS say that that nominee is "too conservative". The odds that ALL FIVE would join hands is very slim, especially once WE got rolling.
Cheney is the 51st vote in the unlikely scenario that ALL FIVE of the above RINOs turned Judas. We win.
(By the way, NO WAY does McCain vote against a good conservative nominee - - the guy wants to be President and he isn't a complete idiot. He may have been skittish about the "nuclear option", but he supports conservative nominees unabashedly.)
Graham and DeWine will vote FOR a qualified conservative nominee, guaranteed. (Hopefully by now most people understand the genius of the "Gang of Fourteen" deal, and appreciate Graham and DeWine's sacrifice in agreeing to become ringers in that amazing neutering of the Democrats' filibuster threat.)
Lugar and Hagel don't worry me too much. (Voinovich does worry me somewhat due to that little problem he has with "mental stability".)
Remember, we are talking about a QUALIFIED, SCANDAL-FREE nominee here. Do you have any idea how vociferous and passionate the support for such a candidate would be? Everybody here would get Bush's back and take a bullet for him in order to make sure that a solid conservative nominee was confirmed. I believe that in the end, the wishy-washy RINO Senators noted above would have ended up far more scared of us than they are of the dying, socialist "mainstream" newsrooms.
It is a real shame that Bush punted on the most critical decision of his Presidency. I have done the math and it DID NOT have to come to this. The whole thing makes me want to throw up.
This was a terrible nomination. The hearings will once again be a meaningless and uninformative TV show starring a bunch of blowhard Senators, and in the end we conservatives will be left with nothing else to do but cross our fingers and hope that Miers turns out to be no worse than O'Connor. Wow. That's just great.....
That is NOT what I voted for.