Federalist Society members for Obama: a club of one?

Those who seek living, breathing evidence of Barack Obama's crossover appeal might want to go see Douglas Kmiec (pictured) tonight at the University of Minnesota. If the hall is crowded, it may not be due to the big names that crowd the title of his lecture ("The Separate Competencies of Church and State: What John Kennedy and John Roberts Mean for Mitt Romney and Osama bin Laden"). A bigger draw may be the arch-conservative speaker's post-Romney swoon over Obama, which has seriously rattled his conservative Federalist Society  fan base.

Kmiec was a top Reagan/Bush I lawyer who now holds a post at Pepperdine's law school after long stints at Notre Dame and Catholic University. He's a mainstream media go-to guy for conservative views on constitutional law, the recent head of the Romney campaign's Committee on the Constitution, and a prolific writer on far-right concerns. That's why his Slate column last month pitching Obama as the best post-Romney candidate for conservative Catholics came as such a surprise.

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"Kmiec drank the Kool-Aid" was the diagnosis at one right-wing blog. "Kmiec has forgone logic and reason and let emotion get the best of him. Understandably, he was devastated by Romney's failure to capture the nomination." A Catholic critic, Dean Hudson, saw raw ambition at work: "Professor Kmiec is just one more law professor hoping for a Supreme Court nomination. Why not get on board the Obama Express early and jump to the front of the line of potential candidates?"

Indeed, Kmiec was making realpolitik calculations. In one response to the outcry over his Slate stand, Kmiec wrote, "We need to face the reality that we are about to lose the Presidency and the Congress, thanks to the incumbent, and by backing a lackluster, `it's my turn' Republican who is not perceived as advancing the interests that Catholics care deeply about." (McCain had yet to make his weak disavowal of supporter John Hagee's anti-Catholic rantings at that point.)

Cuckingstool wonders whether the Federalist Society, the MacLaurin Institute and other co-sponsors of tonight's event knew of Kmiec's Obama sympathies when they booked him. They did try to line up Continuing Legal Education (CLE) accreditation--successfully in the case of a luncheon lecture today at the Minneapolis Club ("Protecting Religious Exercise"). The state CLE board hasn't yet decided about credits for the U of M lecture.

Both organizations have a track record: MacLaurin was the main sponsor for five previous CLE events on religious themes; the local Federalist chapter has been listed as main sponsor for nearly 70 events going back to the early 1990s. Notable in the ideological tug of war over CLE credit-worthiness was the battle over required "elimination of bias" courses, which the state Supreme Court upheld but opponents challenged with "Bias? What Bias?" events. (The CLE board ruled they met the bias requirement even as they ridiculed it.)

It's a return trip of Kmiec, who participated in a Federalist Society-sponsored panel on same-sex unions at William Mitchell College of Law in 2004. He's making the most of it, with a speech at the University of St. Thomas School of Law last night in addition to the two events today. If, like U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, you can't remember whether you are a member of the Federalist Society, no worries. The event is free, unless you want the single CLE credit organizers have applied for. It's at 7 p.m. tonight (Wednesday, March 12) at the hall at the University of Minnesota Law School named for alum and former Vice President Walter Mondale--who, according to a Pepperdine alum, was hung in effigy at that campus during his 1984 presidential run.
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