Pundits speculate on presidential election like it's a sport

If you follow any major sport, you probably know about weekly power rankings. Teams are rated on their recent performance, and their standing may change from week to week. The ranking supposedly reveals the ultimate winner.

Power rankings have now come to the presidential campaign. Washington Post pundits plan to rank weekly all potential candidates, Democrats, Republicans and independents. But not Donald Trump. Perhaps the Post assumes that he has all the power he needs to get the GOP nomination.

The presidential campaign is well under way, starting barely after the latest elections. The pundits are hard at work, speculating on the latest news. The voters are likely to be confused.

The congressional races have also begun. Last week, Sen. Susan Collins' campaign announced her best fundraising quarter ever. It openly attributed the support, from all 50 states, to her vote in favor the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Kavanaugh's opponents have raised a war chest to support whatever candidate opposes Collins, the expected Republican standard bearer. Money in politics? Here is a case of money seeking the candidate, not the reverse. It seems clear that the campaign will be mainly about that one vote by Collins.

There might be as many as 20 Democratic hopefuls in the presidential race. Inevitably, this campaign crowd must be seen as reflecting the belief that Trump is vulnerable and almost any respectable Democrat can beat him. The problem is that's just what the Democrats thought in 2016, when the result did not support their optimism.

Only a few of the Democrats have a platform. The Post's power ranking focuses more on where candidates fit in their parties, based on their personality and where they hail from.

Are the Democrats inclined to select a reformer willing to upset tradition, as young voters supposedly want? Or will they prefer a candidate who appeals to the white, working class men who usually line up with the GOP? Is it the right moment for a woman to be elected, thanks in part to the growing involvement of women in the political process?

Whatever happens, it would be a mistake to conclude that the Democrats will end up so badly divided they cannot win. Unlike the GOP, the Democrats are accustomed to internal battles and the campaign losers often stick with the party's candidate.

On the GOP side, Trump seems to be having trouble finding his footing. He has always relied on the cheers of his base, the core group of supporters who stick with him no matter his policy choices. But other Republicans, especially in the business community, and even some of his core are now becoming less reliable.

The economy is strong. But if it slows, as forecast, will Trump still be able to take credit for a boom? The tax cut has produced only small benefits, but a large deficit, making it less popular than it was originally.

And he has stumbled. His Wall is not happening and he looks increasingly desperate. His rebuke of the government intelligence chiefs backfired, and he admitted that he had only followed their analysis in the media, when most presidents would have been briefed by them. The shutdown failed and left him looking unsympathetic to workers.

Moderate GOP office holders have been hinting they might run against him in party primaries. But they would need massive funding and enough support from reluctant Republicans to defeat Trump in early primaries. Achieving either seems unlikely unless more of his base washes out.

Of course, the Mueller report may contain enough damaging information about Trump's involvement with the Russians in the 2016 campaign that even some of his base deserts him. His continued coziness with Russia, while the diplomats and military openly worry, could make him more politically vulnerable.

If Trump weakens or drops out, watch for an army of GOP candidates. They would test whether the GOP has permanently abandoned moderate politics to become a party of the far right.

The political scene is too unsettled and the primaries are too many months away for television's talking heads to get much right.

With the campaign under way, it is worth remembering picking a president is serious business, not a sport to handicap. Speculation can swamp knowledge. The voter far from Washington may be treated more like a commodity than as a citizen.

Conclusion? Don't pay much attention to the pundits and don't rush to pick a candidate. Plenty of time remains for candidates to emerge, shine or simply disappear. This is not a sport.

Picking Supreme Court justices: the lost lesson

Here's a good story that should have had a sequel.

About 100 days after he suddenly found himself president of the United States, Harry S Truman had to fill his first vacancy on the Supreme Court. In 1945, the Court was composed of seven Democratic appointees and one Republican.

Himself a Democrat, Truman naturally wanted to reward a member of his own party. He was said to have considered several possibilities, and the Secretary of Labor claimed that Truman had promised him the slot.

The Senate had a Democratic majority, though many Democrats were southern conservatives, often closely aligned with the Republicans. Truman's advisors urged him to name a Republican, a move never before made by a Democratic president. He decided to follow their advice.

He finally settled on Sen. Harold H. Burton of Ohio. Burton had been a member of the Truman Commission, the watchdog body that fought wasteful military spending during World War II. Truman found him thoughtful and honest. Above all he supported the role of Congress in lawmaking and a limited role for the Court.

Burton, a former mayor of Cleveland was originally from Massachusetts and a Bowdoin College graduate. He was nominated and confirmed in a single day. The Democrats supported their president and the GOP supported a Republican. Above all, senators readily supported one of their own.

The new justice was no legal theorist, but he was an effective and respected jurist. Few would ever know that Chief Justice Earl Warren had allied himself with Burton, a long-time opponent of racial segregation. Together, they carefully forged the unanimous Court that ended school segregation and "separate, but equal."

Fast forward to 2016. The sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia created a vacancy on the Court. President Obama sought to replace the conservative justice with a more moderate jurist. But the Senate was controlled by Republicans who wanted to replace Scalia with an exact copy.

Obama nominated a highly qualified judge, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told him face to face, that he would block any Obama nominee. He expected the GOP would win the presidency, though a Republican could not take office for about a year. He intended to keep the seat vacant until then.

While nobody doubted the qualifications of Judge Merrick Garland, Obama's nominee, nobody could reasonably expect him to be confirmed. Obama was reluctant to retreat in the face of McConnell's obstinacy. The White House seemed frozen.

This scenario worried supporters of the Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which had affirmed that abortions are legal. With a new Scalia, the threat of the Court reversing that decision might remain a real possibility.

The problem was not about Obama refusing to back down. It was about his failure to try to outmaneuver McConnell. Obama was not Truman.

If Obama had followed Truman's action, he might have ended up with a new justice who was favorable to Roe v. Wade. How?

Obama might have appointed a Republican senator to the Court. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is rated as a moderate who supports Roe. Her appointment would place on the Court its only justice without an Ivy League law school degree, which could add to her appeal. And it would be a first for Alaska.

Would McConnell block consideration of her nomination? Senatorial courtesy plus party loyalty would have virtually required him to let her enter the confirmation process. She would have access to make her case with her colleagues at any time, a privilege that was denied to Garland.

Allowing her to move the Court would have been a major boost for the GOP, which faces declining support from women.

If Murkowski had gone to the Court, she would have left one less appointment for President Trump to pick off the list of conservatives given to him. Even if he appointed a conservative when the next vacancy occurred, Murkowski could have become the swing vote on the Court.

Obama would have produced change, as he had promised. Even in the unlikely case Murkowski rejected the appointment or was denied confirmation, Obama would have made a gesture to provide the kind of cooperation that voters have said they want.

In the 2016 election campaign, the question of the Supreme Court vacancy faded from view, becoming a non-issue. If Obama had sought to appoint a Republican woman to the Court, he may well have enhanced the chances for his own party in the presidential and congressional elections.

Lacking this move, Harold Burton remains the only Republican appointed to the Court by a Democratic president.

Federal government falters; Maine recovers

There's bad news and good news about the political understandings that make our system of government work.

The biggest piece of bad news has been the shutdown of much of the federal government because of a battle over President Trump's proposal to build the Wall.

While there's more than enough finger pointing about responsibility for the shutdown, there's too little recognition in Washington that a shutdown prevents the government from providing services on which people depend.  Officials are elected and taxes collected, but the government is held hostage to a policy war.

A government shutdown affects the economy and puts people out of work.

The 2019 shutdown tops the national record for closing the federal government.  Used by either the president or Congress, shutdowns were never part of the plan for the unique American political system.  By bringing it into play, federal leaders can disrupt an understanding that has existed since the beginning.

The problem is compounded by another departure from tradition.  Congress is supposed to pass the laws it considers necessary.  The president has the power to veto legislation, his rejection subject to being overridden by two-thirds of each of the two houses.

That process requires interaction between the will of Congress and the will of the president – two equal branches of government.  If the president vetoes a bill, it's dead unless the two sides negotiate and try again.  If the president's veto fails, the bill is enacted.

This time, the Senate has ignored that constitutional intent.  Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, wielding the power to decide just what bills the Senate considers, prevented a bill passed by the House, controlled by Democrats, coming before the senators. 

He said the only bill he would permit is one Trump would sign.  In effect, Donald Trump was elected to replace the U.S. Senate by McConnell's single vote.  Aside from giving the Majority Leader too much power, his action violated the intent of the separation of powers.  He finally backed down.

Maine's GOP Sen. Susan Collins disagreed with McConnell, but by joining with other Republican senators to select him as Senate leader, she gave him his great power.

McConnell's error is even worse than it appears, because Trump would not stick consistently to a single proposal on border security.  He may favor deal-making, but what's the deal?

The president insists that a wall between the U.S. and Mexico is the key to solving illegal immigration.  He promised it as a candidate, and he tries to keep his promises, no matter how the situation changes.  That seems to be the reason that a record-breaking shutdown became acceptable to him.

The Democrats argue the Wall is a false solution, but there are other, more effective measures they would support.  Their willingness to negotiate on border security after the shutdown could not work unless Trump agreed.  Their proposal to end the shutdown and then talk is what McConnell long kept from the Senate.

The net result of the Wall shutdown is the failure, if not the outright loss, of key understandings about how the government should work.

The good news is that the normal functioning of government, after a breakdown in the way the system operated, is being restored in Maine.

Like many states, Maine requires the people to vote on major additions to the public debt.  As a result, the voters must approve bond issues.  They may also approve matters such as the expansion of the number of people covered by Medicaid.  The U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed that the people are the ultimate legislative body, able to displace state legislative action.

In Maine, the governor has the power to veto bills passed by the Legislature but not bills passed by the people, who are the sovereign and supposedly the governor's boss.  But former Gov. Paul LePage thought he had the power to block decisions made by popular vote just because he alone opposed them.

That made him a sore loser.  But he also violated the historic understanding that the governor's role in processing the results of popular votes is merely administrative, without any veto power.  He may have violated the state constitution as well.

Gov. Janet Mills brought back constitutional tradition by allowing Medicaid expansion and bond issues, adopted by strong popular majorities.  The understandings that make Maine government work were restored.

Mills' moves were the essence of true conservatism.  She maintained state government as its founders intended.  She reversed short-term political posturing that was damaging constitutional government.

We need more of that kind of government in Washington.