It is beginning to look as though the Supreme Court nominations are viewed by the Bush administration as a major set piece of the President’s second term, as reported in USA Today:

In his first response to questions about the vacancy since O’Connor’s surprise announcement Friday, Bush said he won’t rush a decision but wants her successor to be on the bench when the Supreme Court resumes work in October. He said he’s considering — “a good-sized” number of prospects. “I will begin to hone in on a handful of candidates over the course of the next few weeks,” he said. Then, he said, he will interview them himself.

So the game plan is to appear deliberate, consultative and reflective, and to spotlight a number of the leading candidates, since the news will profile them on the days of their visits to the White House or Crawford. The confirmation hearings would thus appear to take place largely in September, with the administration using the Court’s start date in October as a pressure point.

September should be a good month for TV advertising.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2005 at 8:04 am and is filed under General, Red Shift, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.