The candidate pledges to appoint/confirm only justices whose history indicates them to be a strict constructionist and who will interpret the law/constitution in accordance with their original intent. 

Affirmative Argument

It should not matter whether a judge’s ideology is liberal, conservative, democrat or republican because a judge/justice is supposed to leave their ideology at the door and rule on the law.  Unfortunately we have too many examples at both the appellate and the nation’s highest court where a justice did not leave their ideology at the door.  They decided based upon what they considered to be “fair” and then searched the law for any phrase that even when taken out of context might give them the ability to stretch an interpretation that would be consistent with their ideology rather than the Constitution’s original intent. 

Today we have a number of Congressmen who believe that Article 1, Section 8 provides Congress the authority to levy and collect taxes for the ‘general welfare’ and thus provides the Constitutional basis for the government involving itself in Healthcare Reform.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper #41 that phrases within the Constitution, when taken out of context are capable of broad interpretation, nevertheless these clauses relate specifically to those powers enumerated in the Constitution and no more. 

Taken to the extreme if the more broad interpretation of ‘general welfare’ were to be accepted there would be no need for the remainder of the document.  For example, it could be considered to be the ‘general welfare’ that races be segregated, that soldiers not be allowed to marry, that democrats not be allowed to procreate, etc., but these topics are clearly unreferenced in the Constitution and would deny individuals equal protection.