I was just kidding you, Jonathan. I have almost no worries about the kind of judges that President Thompson would pick.

But since you bring it up, let me just say a word about the Gang of 14 deal. I thought it was, on balance, a bad deal. But I don’t think a politician’s position on that deal tells us much about his judicial philosophy. It doesn’t even tell us much about how hard he would fight for conservative judges, because the circumstances that gave rise to the deal were so specific. (The next Republican president is going to have bigger problems getting his judges confirmed than filibusters by a Democratic minority.)

McCain’s support for campaign-finance reform gives me more pause, since the set of judges that would uphold the regulations he favors does not overlap very much with judicial conservatives. But his record of support for Roberts and Alito, along with his earlier support for Bork and Thomas, suggest to me that he does not let his position on campaign-finance reform unduly influence his thinking on judges.