Kavanaugh has now been credibly accused of having committed attempted rape, sexual assault, battery, false imprisonment plus perjury. This is no ordinary situation like an ass grab at the end of a long, drunken, flirty party. We’re talkin’ rape. Kavanaugh does not represent the borderline case of where the outer boundary of actionable sexual conduct should be. It’s right in the sweet spot of why sexual assault/rape laws exist in the first place.
I think the chances of Kavanaugh not being confirmed just crept up to 45%.
I take Josh’s point that the GOP will crawl over glass for the Kavanaugh vote. But they pulled out the stops to kill the ACA and didn’t get that done either. The ACA was every bit the signature issue that getting a majority on the SCOTUS is for them. The issue isn’t the political will of a majority of GOP Senators or the GOP base, but rather the will of the swing or soft GOP partisans and the influence of public opinion.
The problem for the GOP is that due to the seriousness of the allegations and the questions it raises about Kavanaugh’s character, the politics of this have shifted. For Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, the smart political move is now to vote ‘no’. If they do so, they become Senators for life. There isn’t much a Democrat could say to convince 50%+1 voters that a GOP Senator who voted against ACA Repeal and against Kavanaugh (for women’s rights) is too conservative or extreme for the state. On the flip side, a ‘yes’ vote likely ends their careers fairly soon.
Now, they may not care about staying in the Senate, and would prefer to get the cushy job that the Koch Bros are willing to line up for them, but I’ll make the assumption that they want to stay in the Senate. If that’s the case, then Mitch McConnell will have a difficult time getting their votes because the local politics of this does not work for a pro-Kavanaugh position.
Jeff Flake said that the nomination should not proceed until Christina Blasey Ford’s accusation is investigated further. If Flake is serious (and he is known as the biggest gas bag in the Senate), then his refusal to vote for Kavanaugh in committee would kill or stall the nomination. If Flake is serious (again, big ‘IF’), then I would suspect that he is running cover for Collins, Murkowski and perhaps 5 or 6 other GOP Senators who don’t want this vote on their resumes.
The GOP is favored to win this vote, but right now, I’d say that position looks very tenuous and may not last.
There is also the chance that Kavanaugh takes himself out. He will have to lie to his wife or tell her the truth. Either way, his marriage will never be the same. In addition, who really believes that this was the only such incident? I don’t. Kavanaugh always struck me as this unctuous, insecure dude looking for approval of conservative peers and who defines his self-worth by his level of acceptance among the conservative tribe. This sort of thing is exactly what he would do to prove his tribal bona fides. I don’t think this is the only time he has done so.
