Murphy VP pick unlikely, but not impossible
During an interview last week, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy downplayed a USA Today story by reporter Heidi M. Przybyla that included his name in a list of potential vice presidential candidates to run on the Democratic ticket with Hillary Clinton.
“I think that almost every member of the Senate has been on a list of potential vice presidents, so I don’t take these reports terribly seriously,” Murphy said in response to my question. “I’m just focused on doing this job. … I haven’t given the issue much thought at all.”
Yet one of the reasons the freshman Connecticut senator’s name is being mentioned in the VP speculation was on display in the same interview in which he claimed to have given the idea of being a heartbeat from the presidency little thought. Elected to the Senate in 2012, after moving up from Congress, Murphy has proved quite adroit in attacking the Republicans. Launching effective attacks is pretty much a prerequisite for being an effective vice presidential candidate.
Murphy spoke to a group of reporters by phone last Wednesday after nearly an hour-long meeting with Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the February death of Antonin Scalia.
Murphy said he planned to support Garland’s appointment to the high court if it comes to a vote. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said it won’t this year. McConnell takes the position that the next president should make the appointment. The appointment will determine the future direction of the court, which now splits 4-4 along ideological lines on many cases.
“This is unacceptable,” Murphy said of the strategy of the Republican majority in the Senate. “Never before in the history of this country has a United States Senate refused to consider a nominee presented to the Senate for confirmation to the Supreme Court by a president. I think we should continue to raise holy hell about the obstruction of Judge Garland until every last day of this term is gone.”
The senator made a valid point about the precedent set by the Republican refusal to act on the Garland nomination. In this instance, Republicans are expressing a willingness to wait almost a year to fill a vacancy on the court. Where is the line? Should the Senate block a replacement if the president has 18 months left in his or her term? Two years? More?
Taken to its extreme, no Supreme Court vacancy would be filled unless the Senate and president were of the same party.
“And that is really, really troubling to me. So Republicans need to do their job. They need to get off their tails and call a hearing of the Judiciary Committee as soon as possible,” Murphy said.
According to the USA Today story, in selecting a running-mate Clinton — assuming she wins the nomination as expected — may place a higher priority on demographics than on the traditional strategy of providing geographical balance to the ticket.
In Murphy, who is 42, the ticket would include a young, progressive who might engage Bernie Sanders’ supporters in a way Clinton cannot. Murphy has a 90 percent voting record as graded by the liberal advocacy group Americans for Democratic Action.
Govtrack.us, which examines bills sponsored and co-sponsored by senators, rates Murphy in the middle of Senate Democrats on the moderate-to-progressive scale, showing the leftward movement of Senate Democrats generally.
Murphy could also counterbalance Clinton’s reputation as a foreign interventionist. Murphy has called for a congressional ban on introducing combat troops into Syria or Iraq.
And unlike other vice presidential prospects — including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio — a Democratic governor, not a Republican, would pick Murphy’s replacement should he reach the White House with Clinton, meaning Democrats would retain a critical Senate seat.
Is Murphy the likely pick? Certainly not. But it’s not impossible. In winning his Senate seat he replaced the last guy from Connecticut to run for vice president, Joe Lieberman, who joined Al Gore on the 2000 Democratic ticket.
That the Democratic Party has moved in 16 years from considering for the VP slot a moderate hawk such as Lieberman to evaluating progressives such as Murphy shows how the party has shifted ideologically.
Is it shifting too far to win moderates and unaffiliated voters in the general election? Donald Trump certainly hopes so.
Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.
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