Ramesh, I also thought Deroy gave us a lot worth thinking about today. I wonder if my old boss (Rudy hired me as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1985) could get beyond the hesitations/doubts conservatives are sure to have if he made a big issue of the federal courts.
At the moment, I don’t think there’s much of a public record about the type of judges he’d appoint. But let’s say he were to tell us he’d like to see originalist judges in the mold of Justice Scalia, or at least that he doesn’t agree with Sen. Specter’s view that Roe is a “super-precedent.” That might give him space to contend that, while his personal views on some social issues are liberal, he strongly believes these issues ought to be resolved by the democratic process, not imposed by activist liberal courts. FWIW, I think that might be appealing enough to mollify a lot of the doubters.
Just a thought.