I think you're right in that it will take a nucelus instead of a single person to get this done.  Granted, you could very easily be the point person, the organizer getting the message out.

However, it didn't help that the Dems in the Senate rolled over the way they did.

And Carl Levin yes but Stabenow is a no?

And the Washington twins split as well.  Wow.

About 6 or 8 of the yesses were predictables.  But many of the rest just don't get it.  As Shakespeare wrote, "You can smile and smile but be a villain, too."

Democrats who make the TV for the most part do a real lousy job of making fun of their opponents, speaking down-to-earth language instead of short-handing with the jargon of the day, and looking happy.

Those damn smiling jackasses can't run anything but they sure get elected.

The hearings basically amounted to a comparison between Roberts and Rehnquist, as I see it.  The power politics seem to me to amount to Bush and Republicans being conceded a Rehnquist replacement greatly resembling Rehnquist but lesser, a passive defender of the Rehnquist 'legacy' rather than aggressive.  This amounts to an interpretation and consequence of the feeble- but clear- hardline Republican election victory of just under a year ago.

The Roberts appointment sorted out the political past, all the residual political debts and favors and respect for legacies and such.  The O'Connor replacement game appears to me to be about where The People is and trend.  It links very strongly to the '06 elections on both sides.

My guess is that Bush follows Spector's advice and delays the next Supreme Court nomination until next summer.  I suspect Senate Republicans feel that there isn't strong enough consensus on their side at any level for anyone Bush wants to propose now.  They certainly want a stronger feel of where their supporters and the American mainstream are, or are going to settle, with next year's elections giving them plenty of worry whether they've got the electorate pegged right.

The Party is going to have to be changed. Ruthless Progressives must emerge and take power, just as ruthless conservatives have done.

Yeah, Progressives are nice, open-minded people, but that needn't prevent us from being ruthless, even to the extent that we would support a guy like Lowell Weicker if he runs as an Independent against Joe Schmuckerman.

That Chris Bowers should have ANY leadership roll in this is evidence of the rot and decrepitude in the Democratic Brain Trust.

Rethugs can lie with impunity, and will be called visionary leaders for their deceptions; if Democrats so much as say "not me" after farting, they will be crucified for it. Sad, but true -- these are the rules of the game.

Any factual misstatement will be used against the Dems, while the GOP can get away with murder.

Beyond that, much of the institutional Beltway Democratic party is STILL clueless as to the world we live in.

If the Democratic Senators who voted for Roberts had been generals in the Union Army, they would have been negotiating with the Confederates in 1864. We need leaders who understand that we are at war with the most dispicable bunch of GOP gangsters ever -- they are worse than Nixon, and the most corrupt leadership this country has ever seen.

Our team needs leaders like Grant, Sheridan, and Farragut -- we need visionaries like FDR.

Paul Hackett is the best model we have right now -- will the Beltway Dems ever understand?

The choice puts Pa.'s Democratic Senate candidate at loggerheads with liberal groups supporting him.

By Carrie Budoff
Inquirer Staff Writer

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Robert P. Casey Jr. said that if he were a senator, he would support the confirmation of John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court.

After considering factors such as character, resume and judicial philosophy, and listening to Roberts' testimony before the Judiciary Committee, "I would vote to confirm him," Casey said in a statement issued by his campaign.

Casey's decision erases a potential contrast with incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, who says he will vote for Roberts when the Senate takes up the nomination today. Roberts is expected to be confirmed.

But it puts Casey at odds with some of the same liberal interest groups that are actively working on his behalf, including the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org, which sharply criticizes Roberts in one section of its Web site and seeks contributions for Casey in another.

Several groups opposed to Roberts - MoveOn.org, the state AFL-CIO, and NARAL Pro-Choice Pennsylvania - did not return phone calls yesterday seeking comment.

The Santorum campaign and one of Casey's Democratic challengers, University of the Arts professor Chuck Pennacchio, who opposes Roberts, offered similar reactions yesterday. In an increasingly frequent line of attack, they said Casey's stance on Roberts shows yet again how Casey, who opposes abortion, gun control and federal funding of embryonic stem cell research beyond current levels, is scarcely different from Santorum.

The comparison is "wildly erroneous," said Casey's campaign manager, Jay Reiff.

"Using their twisted logic, the Democratic senators voting for Judge Roberts, like Senators Leahy, Landrieu and Feingold, must be the same as Santorum, too," Reiff said. "The assertion is ridiculous given all the differences between Bob Casey and Rick Santorum on myriad of issues, such as Social Security, the federal deficit and Iraq."

Berwood Yost, a pollster with Franklin and Marshall College, said Casey's choice is politically safe.

"Opposing Roberts runs a broader risk of alienating people who are in the middle," Yost said. "Pennsylvania voters are moderate."

Yost said the bigger challenge for Casey and other Democrats could be deciding on the next nominee, who will replace Sandra Day O'Connor, the court's key swing vote. Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean and several Democratic senators have already talked of filibustering the candidate.

"This one was a no-brainer, and it still seemed difficult for Casey to take a position," said Dan Ronayne, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Casey was unavailable to comment yesterday. But through Reiff, Casey said he was initially concerned that Roberts would "bring an ideological agenda to the bench."

"Based on his testimony and statements, Bob Casey believes Judge Roberts adequately addressed this concern," Reiff said.

Casey used several benchmarks to reach his decision, Reiff said, including academic credentials, legal experience, and judicial temperament and philosophy. He declines to use an ideological litmus test, but does consider whether the nominee sits within the political mainstream, Reiff said.

"Judge Roberts is clearly a conservative, but it would be difficult to argue he is out of the mainstream," he said.

We should not let another judge through who fails to recognize that the right to privacy is constitutionally protected.  Simply acknowledging, as Roberts did, that various Supreme Court decisions over the years have protected privacy is not good enough.  We are entitled to know that this basic, fundamental right will not be infringed based on some silly theory that the word "privacy" doesn't appear in the text of the Constitution.

Which brings me to your second point... I don't think anyone with a legal background could have live-blogged it much better, seeing as how Roberts didn't say anything legally provocative. I mean, his testimony about the privacy rights was vague enough that everyone could hear what they wanted to hear in it (I admit, I felt vaguely heartened by it myself at the time), and he flat out refused to say anything useful about the Commerce Clause, executive power, or any area where the real damage will actually occur.

And even if there had been a more coordinated response in the blogosphere in general, I don't think it would've changed too many votes. I know we in the blogosphere like to think we're important, but I think Democratic senators are still more likely to listen to an advocacy group like People for the American Way -- who were already saying all the things that the blogosphere needed to be saying -- and even with all PFAW's inside-the-Beltway resources, I don't think even they really changed anyone's mind either. The only way the vote count could've really changed would've been if Harry Reid had decided to whip the vote hard. He didn't, so we got some strange votes of conscience (Feingold, Murray, et al).

On the "Yes" column, Levin is a heartbreaker.  Even if you're in the "keep the powder dry camp", it's a surprise.

In the "No" column Biden is the most surprising to me.  Bayh is obviously pimping for a 2008 run.

What are your biggest surprises?

However, the lesson here isn't just that you need better lawyers organizing the opposition to Bush's S. Ct. picks. From the 1st day, Roberts was always confirmable. That wouldn't have changed with better spin from his opponents. Without the Presidency or control of the Senate, a minority party can block only nominees who are truly beyond the pale & widely recognized as such. Roberts & most of the candidates mentioned for the 2nd slot aren't in this category & it is futile to try to portray them as extremists when the facts say otherwise.

I think folks have to also realize that attempting to get a nominee to indicate how he/she might rule, or what rulings he/she disagrees with, is not an effective tactic. If there was ever any doubt about the "Ginsburg precedent", published reports quote Justice Ginsburg as having said unequivocally that Judge Roberts was unquestionably right in not answering such questions.