Obama's Supreme Strategy

President Obama has an opportunity to make history by nominating the first Latino for a Supreme Court seat and putting the final nail in the GOP’s coffin simultaneously. Whether he selects the current favorite Sonia Sotomayor or another person not yet named, a Latino selection would be disastrous to the GOP.


The GOP is firing up their rhetoric machine to viciously attack Obama’s nominee. They have no choice but to throw red meat to their base by launching relentless personal attacks against the unfortunate soul who sits before them to answer questions about his or her intentions as a Supreme Court Justice. The problem they have is one of numbers at the polling booth. Several Western States have turned blue lately and in no small part due to the shift in the Latino vote from Republican to Democrat. I suspect there will be a significant negative reaction in the Hispanic community as they watch the first Latino Supreme Court nominee in history eviscerated by Southern GOP Senators on national television in confirmation hearings. If that does not incite fury, they will hear far right wing anti-immigrant Republicans such as Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck making outright racist statements on the nightly news shows, as they are sure to do.

I have little doubt that the Republican Party will launch merciless attacks on the Supreme Court nominee and that if that nominee is a Latino, there will be serious consequences for the GOP at the polling booths in 2010 and beyond. The growing Latino Community has a right to be represented in the highest court in the Land, and what a great bonus to be able to set the GOP on a suicide course in the process.