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Courting Voters by Robert Alt on National Review Online

...And yet the issue of judges has largely been an afterthought in this seemingly interminable election cycle. Both McCain and Obama have nodded to their bases on this issue — McCain issuing a major speech in May, and Obama articulating his view of a proper judge in speeches, particularly to pro-abortion audiences — but neither has embraced the topic with the fervor of then-candidate Bush.

Some of this de-emphasis is a natural function of the prominence of other issues, like the economic bailout, or the mini-bar-like prices at the pump. But the downgrading of the judicial issue also seems to be a deliberate calculation by the campaigns that the judicial nominations issue just isn’t as pressing as it was in recent elections. Some Republicans seem to view this election as zero-sum game for the judiciary, reasoning that the two most likely retirees from the Supreme Court — Justices Stevens, 88, and Ginsburg, 75 — are also among the most liberal members of the Court, which would mean that their replacement by liberal judges would not alter the Court. This is wrong for several reasons.

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