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It should be apparent by now that Garland was not the middle-of-the-road moderate he was painted as in the media. Nothing stopped Obama from nominating someone more palatable to the Senate.
That's true, but it's immaterial to the gamesmanship of refusing to confirm a justice. The people doing it weren't seers predicting the future, they were changing precedent around confirmation as a political trap card.
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Who do you imagine the congressional/senate GOP would have approved of? It’s clear they wouldn’t accept anyone who didn’t appear likely to reverse Roe, which was obviously the red line.
I think they would have approved Neil Gorsuch.
Obviously Obama didn't want to nominate Gorsuch, which was his prerogative as President. But it's obviously untrue that the Senate would have rejected any possible nomination.
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I don't think that's clear, and if that's the case, the obvious political move would be to nominate somebody who leans conservative on most issues except Roe to reduce the expected payoff of the gamble they were taking.
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