SANDERS and CLINTON ADD NEW MAGIC TO PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS: LITMUS TESTS FOR SUPREME COURT NOMINEES
One the net worthy question when they were asked about the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Technically they were asked whether, if either of them won the election, they would ask President Obama to withdraw the nomination so one of them could name their own nominee.)
Hillary Clinton gave a cagey reply at first, saying that she wouldn’t “engage in hypothetical” because she wanted to fully support Obama’s position that Garland should get a hearing.
Sen. Bernie Sanders went the other way, saying that if he won the election and the Republicans had not moved forward on Garland, he would indeed ask Obama to withdraw Garland so that he could make his own nomination. The reason he gave was familiar because he has said it before, but it is also historic, in a sense, because (before Sanders started doing it) I had never heard a serious presidential candidate be so forthright about a litmus test for a Supreme Court nominee.