WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court fight is about to get personal.
Republicans prepared Monday to unleash a torrent of activity opposing President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. As the president neared an announcement, Obama’s allies, too, were priming for an election-year fight.
The Republican Party launched a task force housed within the Republican National Committee to orchestrate attack ads, petitions and media outreach, party officials said. They want to bolster a strategy that Senate Republicans adopted as soon as Justice Antonin Scalia died last month: refusing to consider an Obama nominee out of hopes that the next president will be a Republican.
The Republican National Committee will contract with America Rising Squared, an outside group targeting Democrats that’s run by a longtime aide to GOP Sen. John McCain. GOP chairman Reince Priebus said it would be the most comprehensive judicial response effort in the party’s history.
Priebus said the RNC would “make sure Democrats have to answer to the American people for why they don’t want voters to have a say in this process.”