Vulnerable Democrats face Kavanaugh crisis: Vote for decency or smears
by Margot Cleveland
| September 25, 2018 04:15 PM
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When President Trump nominated D.C. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, red-state Democrats up for re-election knew they faced a difficult choice: betray either liberal party leaders or the conservative voters who could end their political career.
Kavanaugh’s solid performance during Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings eliminated the possibility of a misstep that Democrats hoped for, leaving Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., Jon Tester, D-Montana, Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., with the same no-good-option dilemma.
Delay was the best hope for the political future of these five moderate Democrats. And for a week, it looked like the last-minute referral from Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to the FBI of Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault accusation against Kavanaugh would stall the vote until after the November midterms. But now that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has vowed a floor vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination "in the near future," red-state Democrats face an impossible choice.
The choice awaiting Democrats is now between confirming Kavanaugh or endorsing a "grotesque and obvious character assassination" of public servants to achieve political ends.
While the public at first seemed sympathetic toward Ford, as more details emerged it became clear that Ford’s last-minute charge lacked merit. But as Ford’s allegations fell apart, the New Yorker ran an uncorroborated hit piece promoting Deborah Ramirez’s claim that, after “six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney,†she believed that, while in college, Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her.
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