In the Center of what?

President Obama is portraying his current Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS) replacement nominee as a "centrist". Sounds all nice and fair, does it not? Whenever I hear a politician says something that 'sounds' fair, I run to the internet (Wikipedia most frequently) to find out what he/she actually means.

Democrat centrism is a creation of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) which was founded in 1985 ... as a self-declared "antidote" to the electoral successes of Reaganism! How can many (any?) Republicans support a Supreme Court nominee who is opposed to Reagan's principles/policies and his constitutional conservatism? Why support replacing Scalia, the unarguably strongest constitution originalist on the Supreme Court, with one who will most likely rule in a “progressive” manner on non-economic matters? Without a doubt, that will shift SCOTUS significantly more progressive ... i.e., 5 to 3 with the ninth justice voting roughly in the middle. How do you think a SCOTUS balanced 5 to 3 progressive will turn out for the Republican half of the country? How is that 'fair' as Obama claims?

As a reference point, Bill Clinton was the DLC chairman prior to stepping down to run for president and claimed to be a "Second Wave New (Centrist) Democrat". According to Wikipedia, Clinton epitomized this centrist New Democrat movement which was, and still is, dominated by socially progressive but economically more moderate power-players in Wall Street (!), Hollywood and Silicon Valley, the types of special interests mostly opposed by Republican voters. But SCOTUS doesn't even rule on the only element of this movement that is actually 'centrist' ... i.e., economic matters.

Candidate Obama declared to the DLC on March 10, 2009 that he is a Clinton Style "New Democrat" too ... pro-growth, fair trade, balanced budgets, welfare reform. However, many of Obama's policies stand in stark conflict with Clinton's Democrat Centrism, so when Obama declares his jurist nominee is "centrist", exactly what does he mean? It is not what Republican's think, nor apparently what most Democrat voters think.

Dennis Olds
Roseburg, Oregon