BY ALL accounts the presidential race is a dead heat, too close to call. Politics is often that way. In elective politics, however, term limits guarantee change, and no election is more enduring than the next.
Campaigns ebb and flow like the tides.
The judiciary is not nearly as transitory. Judges, once appointed, may serve for decades. The greatest legacy a governor or president can leave is his judicial appointments, men and women who will continue to serve long after their sponsor has left office. History remembers that President Nixon appointed William Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court and that Ronald Reagan appointed Antonin Scalia, and that George Bush appointed Clarence Thomas. These conservative jurists steadfastly shape the law despite succeeding elections and shifting political administrations.