… between the politically smart ones …:
Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio said several national surveys found that 60 to 80 percent of Americans opposed Congress’s March 20 intervention in the Schiavo case. Federal courts promptly rejected the lawmakers’ directive to review a series of Florida court decisions allowing Schiavo’s feeding tube to be removed. One appellate judge chastised Congress and Bush for their actions.
Fabrizio said voters “are probably wondering why we can’t get deficit reduction or tax reform or Social Security reform as quickly as we got the Schiavo bill” from the Republican-controlled Congress. Because conservative Christian activists were seen as pushing the legislation, he said, “that’s a symbol of what your [party’s] priorities are, and you’d better show them another symbol.”
Also during the recess, former GOP senator John C. Danforth of Missouri, an ordained Episcopal minister, wrote a New York Times op-ed article criticizing his party’s emphasis on opposing stem cell research, same-sex marriage and Schiavo’s husband. “Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians,” he wrote. …
… and the other kind:
To some, the darkest cloud above Congress is the Senate’s looming clash over judicial nominees. Democrats have used the filibuster — which can be stopped only by 60 votes in the 100-member chamber — to thwart several of Bush’s most conservative appellate court appointees. Republican leaders have threatened to change Senate rules to bar such filibusters, which would require 51 votes. Democrats say they would respond by bringing the Senate to a standstill, hence the scenario’s moniker, “the nuclear option.”
Yesterday, dozens of conservative groups released a letter urging Frist to end the filibusters “at the earliest possible moment.” Some of the signers predicted Frist has the votes he needs, but others said the vote count is uncertain and may remain so for weeks.
If anything, the Schiavo case has heightened tensions over the judicial stalemate. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said the woman’s death “should awaken Americans to the problems of the courts.” More conservative judges are needed, he said, even though others noted that several of the judges involved in the Schiavo case are Republican appointees.
Here’s hoping the dumb guys win out.
