Trump -- even weaker than Clinton
In the year 2020, Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy will turn 85 years old. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg will turn 87. Justice Stephen Breyer will turn 82. Perhaps they will all live and serve on the Supreme Court for another decade. More likely, some or all of them will retire.
This means that by the end of his or her first term, the person elected president this year will almost certainly reshape the Supreme Court for the next generation. And if that person is Hillary Clinton, the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination, even if she loses in Iowa, it isn't hard to imagine how she will shape it.
Recently Clinton said she "loves" the idea of appointing President Obama to the high court. Whether this was just an empty pitch for black votes or she would actually appoint him is beside the point. She would certainly appoint left wing justices inclined to believe in a "living Constitution" so long as it only grows in the direction they like.
In other words, justices who would bend the law to suit their vision, and Clinton's. In the late dark decades of the twentieth century, conservative legislation from the states would go to the Supreme Court where liberal judges would kill it. That would happen again with a Clinton-biuilt Supreme Court. All restrictions on abortion, the right to keep and bear arms, workers' freedom from union coercion, and most limitations on federal power would be defenestrated by our black-robed masters.
Fortunately, Clinton can be beaten in a general election. This is really brought home by Friday's revelation that she was even more reckless with national security information than anyone previously realized. Every single polling organization to ask the question recently has found that Clinton's unfavorable ratings are higher than her favorables, on average by 9 points, according to RealClearPolitics. When Quinnipiac last asked whether Clinton is "honest and trustworthy" in late December, roughly 59 percent of voters said she is not.
Yet Republican primary voters are telling pollsters they want to nominate the one leading GOP candidate whose ratings are even worse. We refer, of course, to Donald Trump, whose unfavorables exceed his favorable ratings in recent polls by an average of 24 points. And when asked by Quinnipiac whether he was honest and trustworthy, he was the only Republican to do anywhere near as badly as Clinton; 58 percent said he was not.
To nominate Trump is to nominate a candidate who is even weaker than the scandal-scarred Clinton. Practically any other Republican candidate would begin with a built-in advantage. Trump would begin with a deficit.
In a series of editorials this week, we have identified substantive reasons why conservatives should avoid Trump, based chiefly on his demonstrated lack of commitment to core conservative principles. But in addition to these, conservatives need to think about practical reasons as well, and the dramatic and long-lasting legal implications of nominating the one man most likely to lose.
Trump has trailed Clinton in nine of the last ten head-to-head nationwide polls between them. He has trailed her by double digits in three of those. With his high negatives, he has never polled above 47 percent, even in his best outlying poll.
In contrast, both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio lead Clinton in the current RealClear national polling averages. Cruz has led or tied her in four of the last five polls. Rubio has led her in seven of the last ten. Both Rubio and Cruz have polled at or above 50 percent against Clinton nationally, despite having lower name recognition. Both senators lead her in the critical swing state of Iowa, and Rubio also leads her in three of the last four polls of New Hampshire.
The bottom line is that conservative voters don't have to sacrifice electability for conservatism, and they don't have to sacrifice conservatism to pick a winner.
But if they pick Trump, they will be sacrificing both for nothing.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-even-weaker-than-clinton/article/2581898
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