Waiting until after Obama already made his selection was poor strategy. Sanders' opposition can be too easily distorted as disloyal to Obama. But Sanders did not use the window available for him to take the initiative in letting the public know what his judicial appointee would look like. Had Sanders made his recommendation immediately known, he would have shifted the burden to Obama to explain why Merrick Garland and his "consensus" strategy is worth the effort.
Obama nominated a "consensus" technocrat under the pretense that the Court has not been behaving for two generations as a political organ, under its unchallenged judicial supremacy ideology. This nomination unfavorably compares with a recess appointment strategy for a progressive who Sanders would recommend on behalf of a majority of 2016 blue and purple state Democratic primary voters, with the particular support of African American women as represented by a distinguished advisory group.
Conclusion
Acceptance of a leader requires leading. One of the positive aspects of the American system of long campaigns is that events will happen in real time that test a candidate's leadership capacity beyond reciting the same finely honed speech in different venues. The Supreme Court vacancy is one of those events.
It is late but still not too late for Sanders to lead. His campaign's blunders may be remedied if the Senate does not act on Obama's conservative nominee by the time of the Senate's May recess. Sanders must begin urging Obama to terminate his insurance ploy at that time, by making a progressive recess appointment. The recess appointment would automatically terminate the plutocratic Garland nomination. Sanders must make it clear to voters that this is the realistic means by which he is going to accomplish his agenda by getting money of the Billionaire Class out of politics.
This strategy will require that Sanders begin the process of determining the recess appointment that he should recommend to Obama. This in turn would require that the campaign immediately implement Millhiser's advice of bringing on board the campaign some expertise on Supreme Court appointments. Sanders will need help both to vet Garland properly and in conducting a proper search for a progressive black woman recess appointee to replace him.
(Previous versions of this article were published by Counterpunch and Dandelion Salad)
(Article changed on March 18, 2016 at 00:04)
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