Miers Winners and Losers: '06 Edition

Winners

• Rep. Tom Tancredo - No he's not in the Senate and no he would not have had to vote on the nomination, but Rep. Tom Tancredo is the biggest winner in this mess. As mentioned in the previous post, several Senators did the right thing, killing the nomination behind closed doors, but Rep. Tancredo was the only elected member of Congress to oppose the nomination outright.
• Rep. Mark Kennedy - Rep. Kennedy was between a rock and a hard place. The President put him in the awkward position of having to rally conservatives by not endorsing the nomination and not hurt himself with the establishment by opposing it. Kennedy breathed a tremendous sigh of relief when the withdrawal was announced.
• Sen. Jim Talent - The Missouri Senate race will be ground zero of the culture war next year. Gov. Blunt has already created a rift with Missouri Right to Life by supporting embryonic stem-cell research. The last thing Talent needed was a vote on the President's nominee. Vote for Miers and anger conservatives. Vote against Miers and be considered a traitor by Bush loyalists. Now, he need not choose.
• Michael Bouchard - After entering and then exiting the race against Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), rumor has it that Bouchard will reenter the race this week. If he does so, it appears as though he will now be able to use the nomination of a strict constructionist as an issue against the incumbent.
• Sen. Samuel Mudd, M.D. - With friends like the President, who needs enemies? Mudd angered the base by campaigning for Arlen Specter against a conservative challenger. As Toomey backers feared, Specter made statements that told the President in no uncertain terms to nominate someone who was more concerned with precedent than the Constitution. It now appears that Specter did not get his way, which will help Mudd - if it is still possible - to mend the rift with conservatives.

Losers

• Sen. Lincoln Chafee - Speculation abounds that the President will select Judge Samuel Alito, nicknamed "Scalito", to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Alito is a conservative and, equally important from Chafee's perspective, an Italian. If Chafee votes to confirm Alito, he will be attacked in the general election as a "Bush Republican". If he votes against confirmation, Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey can attack him for opposing the second-ever Italian Supreme Court nominee.
• Sen. Mike DeWine - First, he participated in the Gang of 14 agreement. Then, he spoke highly of the ill-advised nominate. Now, he is lamenting the fact that the clearly unqualified Miers did not make it to her hearings. When he finds himself in a hole, DeWine never fails to keep on digging. The OH-2 special election had more to do with conservatives staying home than liberals turning out. If McEwen enters the primary, DeWine is toast. If not, he will have to work 25/8 to convince conservatives that he is worth voting for in the general election.