Republican Election Strategy & The Supreme Court

I want to highlight two things in today's blog. First, I continue to believe that the Mark Foley scandal will be off the front pages by early next week and discussion among voters about the mid-term elections will turn to real issues. I've linked to two separate articles that support what I'm talking about. The first is by William Kristol of the Weekly Standard. Kristol writes that the democrats strategy of making the Foley scandal the issue of the mid-term elections will be futile. The second article is in the Chicago Tribune and highlights the republican strategy for the mid-term elections. I think we will see a concerted effort by the republicans, beginning next week, of moving the conversation back toward issues of national security, the economy, etc. For goodness sake, North Korea is talking about testing a nuclear weapon and there's hardly been any mention of it in the main stream media. It certainly hasn't been above-the-fold.

The other thing I want to point out in today's blog is a look at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court has certainly tilted more right (at least I hope -- we haven't seen to many decisions yet that have really sorted this out) with the appointments of Roberts and Alito. I believe the Court is still one vote shy of really being a right leaning, conservative Court. Justice Kennedy is the wild card. It is likely that his vote in every case will be the deciding vote.

My second novel is titled The Divine Appointment (due to release June 2007). The plot line is about the political battle over a Supreme Court appointment that, if confirmed, will move the Court to the right. Although fictional, I certainly hope that in the not too distant future, the Court does move decidedly right and stays that way for a very long time.

Jerome