U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It is said that voters vote with their hearts in the primaries and with their heads in the general election. However, the death of right wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at age 79 might cut that process short. In particular, in the Democratic primaries, Scalia’s death may focus voters’ attention on using their heads and  strategy, which may be more associated with Hillary Clinton, and less on Clinton’s aspirational competitor, Bernie Sanders. Here are several reasons why:

The 2014 elections are only 16 weeks away. That means you’re going to be hearing all kinds of noise in the media — from kids with Ebola to Benghazi to lawsuits against President Obama. The Republicans will do everything to distract from the real issues on which they are vulnerable. So it’s time for Democrats to focus.

We already suggested back in February of this year that the Democrats needed a positive unifying theme for the 2014 elections. You can judge whether the Democrats came through. But now it’s time for the flip side as well: the Democrats need a unifying attack theme against the Republicans that they can focus on for the next four months. Here is our simple two-part suggestion: