Moe Lane

…that’s kind of riffing off of this post here: if you really want to have a good idea of how 2016 is going to go on the Democratic side, keep a sharp lookout next year and in 2014 for how the primary rules are going to be changed. The Obama campaign found every exploit in the world during the 2008 primaries; it will be instructive to see if they keep plugging the holes.

I suspect that they will; I’m coming to the conclusion that the Democratic Establishment will really and truly think that it’s going to be a good idea to run Joe Biden, and to do that he’s going to need a full-forced shutdown of any primary quirk that doesn’t favor incumbents. (more…)

Look who they’ve farmed the prep work off on:

Cynthia Hogan, chief counsel to Vice President Biden, will lead the White House team, with assistance from several other Biden aides. Former Obama campaign adviser and transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter will handle message and communications, two administration officials tell CNN.

The vice president, a veteran of Supreme Court nominations from his time on the Judiciary Committee, is also expected to play a key role, an administration official confirmed to CNN.

This helpful graphic may clarify the point:

That’s from the Alito hearings, which the Democrats rather badly wanted to short-circuit, but couldn’t. I concur in the implicit advice suggested by that graphic and the end of the CNN article: GOP Senators, make Sotomayor talk and talk and talk. Short questions, make her clarify everything, and the Senators going on later, keep track of what she was saying earlier and ask her about that.And here is my radical suggestion for these hearings:

I want every Republican Senator on that committee to set a goal of no more than 1,000 words for questions, and stick to it.

These are days for boldness.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.