Just after I wrote that Donald Trump, now that he has sewn up the Republican nomination, may think it prudent to quietly forget his earlier promise to provide a list of potential Supreme Court nominees, he has once again promised to release such a list.
The list has now increased to possibly 15 names and he says it will be released before the Republican convention in July.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump said would consider “wonderful, conservative, good, solid, brilliant judges in the form of” the late Justice Antonin Scalia. “I’m going to actually lay them out. I’m going to discuss people … I think before the convention. I want to put 10, 12, 15 names of the type of people that we’d like,” he said.
“From that list, I would choose.”
I still don’t see any upside to this unless he thinks that he needs something to galvanize his party’s conservative base, although he also risks alienating independent voters who do not share Scalia’s judicial views.
I think that the judges themselves might be less than enthusiastic about being dragged into what promises to be a nasty election fight.
moarscienceplz says
I think that’s right -- he is trying to placate those card-carrying Republicans who say he’s not a real conservative and convince them to temper their revulsion enough to “save the Party”. As for alienating independents, I think any independent who’s going to pull the Trump lever in November has already decided he’s their man. Love him or loathe him, there’s no middle ground.