this is exactly what we need to be doing, in anticipation of the sort of stuff that we know they'll try to pull on us.

If I had donated money to these jokers, I would be demanding a public audit right now, to see exactly where all their money went to in this "fight".

Seriously, GREAT POST!
Very important post as well.
Every Democratic voter and politican needs to study this.

i'm in complete and total agreement with you on this one, matt.

The second part of matt's plan , is to fall in with the GLBT crowd that opposed Kerry actually standing up there and saying gay marriage is a bad idea, then turn to the candidate and state that somehow the blogosphere was connected to the GLBT lobby, which it wasn't.

Many here opposed taking any action at all .. Matt himself said "well, it won't matter, but we should help" only after much opposition here...

The blogosphere is independent and the real failing is that there were special interests on all sides that didn't care. There are groups whose primary focus is to worry about single issues, and they pretend to speak for everyone.

Kerry was right to oppose gay marriage, and he was right to attempt to filibuster Alito.

I don't think liberals will coalesce around the issue of abortion anymore.  

i think they will coalesce around rights, of which abortion is just one.

This is exactly what should have happened, but pathetically didn't.

Why not do this for the Patriot Act renewal coming up?

Exactly.  It worked for Social Security and it could have worked on this issue.  Organization, drive, and not backing down when the VRWC cranks up the volume about how unfair all the accusations are.

move on.

Sure we could have one this fight, but not with Senators who are unwilling to stand up for what we want.  Kerry, Kennedy, and Obama were the ones leading the filibuster against Alito.  The rest of the Democrats were too chicken to support a filibuster.  What kind of representation is that?

Then you have Dem Senate candidates like Jim Pederson in AZ who said that they wouldn't support a filibuster.  Why are we supporting these "Democrats" who won't stand up for what the Party wants?  We're here day in and day out fighting for our rights and we've got representatives in Washington who won't support us with their votes.

And now people like Pederson expect our votes?  We don't need more chickens in the Senate.  We need some real leaders who are willing to stand up for what the Democratic Party really wants.  

Sounds like a blueprint for the future. (How distant, I wonder?)

I can see why you'd want to go for one topic - and make that abortion rather than abuse of power: voters have at least some familiarity with, and grasp of, the issues involved in abortion law.

But what about the senators? For example, the conference report on the Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003 passed 64-34, with no fewer than 17 Dem senators voting for it.

Fighting against the death by a thousand cuts of abortion rights is apparently embarrassing enough for a lot of Dem senators: think what taking a stand on principle would do for their equanimity!

Plus the (so far as I can see) essentially fissiparous nature of Dem and Dem-friendly organization: there's not even (that I know of) the Dem equivalent of the infamous Grover Norquist Wednesday meeting.

Clearly, it's possible to achieve the degree of coordination proposed - because the GOP manage it. But, then, they had humiliating decades in opposition in Congress to deflate egos and concentrate minds.

Just one decade, I'm thinking, is nowhere near enough!

Abortion was never the right issue to do this with.

And I could see this going in a completely different way than you describe.  As you said, the media would cover the ad-hoc unbranded groups as extremists.  So then the dem senators would try to distance themselves from it and they would all vote for Alito.  Look at the reaction from NARAL's Roberts ad.  

I'm really frustrated with all these comments and posts on mydd about why we lost.  everyone who was not bothering to fight because they thought they couldn't win anyway is now blaming the organizations that were working on this for the loss.  come on.  if the base had such a defeatist attitude, how can they expect that the senators were going to fight?  it was only the organizations that were trying to get people to care and senators to fight.  now everyone on blogs is saying "we could have won."  i've been doing nothing but supreme court stuff for the last 7 months and no one was saying it was possible to win except for the organizations who had formed a national coalition around this.

<center></center>

Ok so when I posted this at MLW it got tagged with circular firing squad. I can undrestand that, but it does fit in with the larger strategy engaged here. Ridicule of wavering resources sort of thing.

Of course, the whole narrative of this article is taking place amongst all sorts of other agendas taking place at the same time. It's easy to accomplish something when everyone is focused on the same thing. Harder when various agendas are melded.

But it is doable. I would hope that we are in the process of creating such a force as described above.

Great plan.  The key now is to implement a similar plan IMMEDIATELY on the illegal, unconstitutional domestic spying program.  Hardhitting ads, maybe with the voice of Gene Hackman (since he acted in Enemy of the State and its predecessor) or get the voice of Frontline to narrate.  Or, maybe no narration:  start with headline of "Bush Ordered Secret Spying on Americans," then cut to a darkened room, full of computer equipment and people wearing headphones/watching video screens, split with people having everyday conversations about ___ (private matters that all of us talk on the phone about).  The guys are listening in, and putting the monitored conversations on the speakers in the room and high-fiving and laughing at the grief, doubt, heartfelt secrets, etc.  that they are hearing.  Close with "Tell your congressman what you think about President Bush's illegal program of spying on ordinary Americans>

and I started paying attention to politics when the Iraq war started. I don't even know what NARAL is an acronym for and I'm not entirely sure why I should care. I get the impression they were influential in the 90's, but so was grunge music, who cares?

I kind of associate NARAL and even groups like NOW and the NAACP with things like the DLC, if only in the sense that they're mostly ineffective, old guard, elitist, dinosaur organizations, still living in the 90's.

Am I completely off in my admittedly anecdotal assessment here?

The results are in.  And they are , well, abnormal. Since 1900, most Supreme Court nominations breeze through (59 of them, to be exact).  Six of the eight others were killed and two squeezed by.  This is one of those two.

Those voted down included Bork (42-58), Carswell (45-51), Haynsworth (45-55) and Parker (39-41, during the Hoover admin).  Neither Harriet Miers nor Abe Fortas got a vote although Miers was killed off by her own party.

That leaves Clarence Thomas (confirmed, 52-48) and Sam Alito (confirmed 58-42).

The largest no vote was for Bork.  Bork was clearly "qualified" and, unlike Thomas, he had no real personal scandals.  That is the sum total of the case for Sam Alito.  Bork, however, met a massive campaign that painted him as out of the mainstream.  UnlikeAlito, Bork made no attempt to pussyfoot.  He was what he was.  And what Bork was was defeated badly.

Alito may have had little paper trail but it was clear that he was the candidate of the far right.  A Bork type campaign might have been a little harder but it was very clear that Alito was either an opportunistic liar or an extreme ideologue.  Maybe both.

You are right on the money about the need to pressure both moderate Republicans and weak Democrats.  Look at the impact that the Ed Case moneybags candidacy had on the Hawaiians (cloture vote) and the rich opponent had on Byrd.  Conversely, we put the heat on Chafee and it worked.  We should have been working hard in Maine to get a decent and well funded opponent to Snowe.  The defeatist talk let Snowe and Collins off the hook and we needed those votes.  Maybe if we got them in line the vote would have started to get near the magic number.  Add 4 more and it is a tight ball game.  Would Johnson or Byrd defect if it meant the nomination?  Would Specter have bolted?  Once we got really close, all the pressure would have gone on to the Warners, DeWines, Voinoviches, and perhaps Gordon Smiths of the world.

Absolutely right, Matt.  This procedure should have been in place, and implemented immediately upon the election of a Republican president likely to appoint the 5th conservative justice.  There's likely to be a lot of suffering as the result of shortsightedness on the part of our elected officials.  This should not be tolerated.

Why didn't it happen?

Because the establishment Dems did not want it to happen.

So off with their heads.

Why not have a retrospective bashing of the Democrats who didn't do our bidding?

Screw you guys I'm going home.

Let me know next time this can happen, I'll put up the graphic on my blog.

One of the reasons we often fail to put these campaigns together is because we lack the money and the organizations.  Republicans not only have unlimited financing, they use it to put together umpteen Astroturf organizations at the drop of a hat.  5 minutes after Alito was nominated there was probably a Committee for a More Italian Judiciary or somesuch.

What's puzzling about this specific example is that we shouldn't have had this problem.  NARAL and other pro-choice groups have long pedigrees and they should be way out in front on a Supreme court nomination.  And these organizations certainly have no shortage of fundraising ability.  So what the heck are they using it for?

If we can't get our act together for an issue where we already have the funding and the infrastructure in place, good luck getting the message out on NSA spying, my friends.  So far our war effort basically consists of begging the Judiciary Committee Senators to read Glenn Greenwald's blog.

If the Dems and the Progressive groups had prepared early on to fight this foreseeable battle, the Great Capitulation of 2005, which sealed the Dems fate, would not have occurred. Now, the Dems are resigned to having the filibuster so long as they never, ever use it.

Another outstanding post, Matt. This is the progressive framework to fight back the right-wing and to take back the country.

I like your analysis and regard it as a blueprint for future action. However, as someone who is new to the blogging and political activism scene, I don't think this was necessarily a failure. There are a lot of people out there like me who were discouraged that the Democratic leadership was not putting up much of a fight, and I took the defeatist attitude that Bush would just keep pulling hacks and ideologues out of his conservative judicial Dixiecup dispenser, and somehow we stumbled upon great lefty blogs that were attempting to influence the process anyway. I was drawn in by the great writing and clear thinking, the sense of community, and a locus for information regarding the who/what/when etc. of contacting the Senators. I hate to display my ignorance for all to see, but until this instance I never thought there was any point in contacting anyone other than my own elected officials. I was also strangely riveted to the Young Turks "Filibuster for the Filibuster" webcast, and I don't know how many permutations there were of "Wow, this is great; I'm glad Blog X mentioned it," but the sum total of this effort made me believe I was witnessing a seminal moment in the struggle turn the tide on Bushco and their media sympathizers. Maybe, maybe not. Sure, the lopsided vote was disappointing, but I think the lefty blogosphere is approaching critical mass as a force to be reckoned with if it can pull in apathetic and cynical folks like me. Y'all are doing SOMETHING right!

Cenk Uygur Lessons Learned from the Alito Fight  
The Huffington Post

Matt, this is another good perspective.  I talked to someone in the Gov's office at DNC in DC.  She is eager for people to drop by and hang out at the web.  They are trying to improve it and plan to copy the RNC one so we have tools and talking points.  They even had a rapidresponse link.  It had links to freep polls, talking points, and a one-stop LTE ready to go on SOTU.   I suggested DNC work closer with bloggers.  She said they were there and willing to listen.  Would appreciate our input.  Your take?

And start applying it to the 06 election cycle.  A lot of this can be translated to the upcoming season as well as the wiretapping application that's been mentioned earlier.

The problem is, as always, coordination of message. Dems are, as I've mentioned before, not united on a single message except "down with Republicans." That means that wel rarely get cross-issue cooperation because we're afraid of scaring off Dems who are only partially signed on to the progressive spectrum of issues.

I saw recently a description of Mark Warner as "proving that moderation can be dynamism instead of compromise" or something similar.  This isn't necessarily an endorsement of Warner, but just acknowledgement that there are ways to get outside the traditional box here if we're willing to try it.

This sounds like Rove designed it.  Great job, Matt.  You are right of course.  We are disorganized and that makes us weak.  So where does the leadership come from to do this?  Dean/DNC?  Blogs?  Who?  I posted a diary at Kos trying to get people to write LTEs based on DNC talking points, link provided for one stop e-mailing, and I got 13 takers.  I think people would rather complain that put up.  Matt, who will lead?  I love David Sirota.  His stuff reminds me of your stuff.  

While I am a supporter of the filibuster, it was more to make a statement if we could do it with jeopardizing Senators for re-election. But, I have to disagree strongly that this strategy would have beaten the Alito nomination. Even if we had beaten them this time, the next nominee would probably have been more egregious.

Abortion will never be the issue to win this type of debate.

Sure most of the American people support abortion, and sure most of Americans dislike Bush's performance (but not him personally), but it is irrelevant to the filibuster. The issue is what is the position of voters in the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and Nebraska on Bush and abortion. Want to bet this is different than the national polls?

If we made sure Blue or marginally sometimes blue states with moderate voters on social issues like Maine, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Florida and Oregon had 2 Democratic Senators, we would not be in the position.

Instead to win, we have push our red-state Senators to vote with us on a filibuster and potentially lose Senators who vote with Dems 50% only to replace them with 100% Republican Senators.

The Constitution gives rural states a lot more power in the Senate. This makes Democrats (who hail from populous states) inherently in a weaker position than Republicans in the Senate.

I second the frustration of Lesley over the scapegoating and agree that "abortion was never the right issue to do this with." I also agree with bluenc that "constitution and privacy" should have been more at the forefront. A Senator from the Dakotas would get "killed" torpedoing a nominee simply for abortion, not so with privacy.

It sucks being in the minority... We better be reminding votes that: Washington business as usual = Republicans, Washington = Republicans, Washington = Republicans, etc...

The Democrats knew how to defeat Alito. They chose not to defeat him.

Of course it could have been won, as could; the Plame outing, the Gonzalez nomination, taxcut welfare, the environment, and a host of other nominations and issues. The issue here is implementation failure.

The party apparatus is aligned top down, with the minority marquee names at top charged with direction and execution, and with majority base only to be used for election. The majority of our party, not only has no input within the structure, but more importantly, no access to the structure other than elections. The base is strategic; the leadership is tactical (or is supposed to be). So, why is the leadership failing on so many issues and nominations?

There are many answers to the tactical failures, but only one is the genesis of all the others; the base failed to exert the strategic power of election. We progressives have failed our party by not vetting candidates within the primaries and by passing the failing incumbents in pursuit of expediency. Now we are in the dismal position of having the potential for a total re-alignment of power in 2006 with an apparatus that fails in implementation.

So, we the base have a choice. Do we allow strategic failure to continue making tactical failure likely? Or do we start to project our strategic power to win the future tactical battles?  The Liebermans, Bidens, and Salazars, coo softly "it's just like going to sleep". It is time the base shouts back, "no it's just like getting fired".

We should be getting a national organization to do a commercial like this video from ProgressNow Action, a Colorado group (sorry I haven't learned how to do links yet):

http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/co mmunity/post_group/ProgressTVVideoBlogs/ CLz2#comment-BN7

Every single group interested in protecting women's and minority rights had boots on the ground to oppose Alito - witness Feinstein's change of heart.

Here's a couple points of failure in your system:

1) There was one woman on the Senate judiciary committee and there are 14 women senators.  Women's issues are not a priority for this or any other congress, and they won't be until there is equal representation.  THIS should be a priority if you are concerned with women's issues.  Support Emily's List to put your money where your mouth is.    
2) NARAL had a huge backlash against the ad they ran against John Roberts, including from those on the left.  In fact people on the left are still bashing NARAL.  Why?  Honestly, what is to be gained by attacking people fighting for decades on the same side?  

The issue is that the public had no perception that Alito is an extremist.  They might have known he was Italian, as that is what the press seemed to focus on.  The press does not bring any substantitive information to bear on public debate.  Our Senators are then let off scot free by their constituants, who may not even know what the impact of a right wing supreme court nominee means to them.  

I thought the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary committee behaved foolishly.  These are people who have power, who have a visible public  platform with the hearings, and they wasted it trying to catch Alito, a smart and savvy judge, on technicalities.  Give me a break!

The Republicans didn't play nice with Harriet Miers.  They said point blank - she's not extreme enough - we don't support her, and voila - she vanishes.  The Democrats had their chance to do the same thing - stand firm in public and make a stink about Bush appointing an extremist - and repeatedly calling him what he is.  Harry Reid did.  Ted Kennedy did.  Precious few of the others showed where they stood.  And make no mistake, with the current gang in power, if you stand up, like Joe Wilson and Jack Murtha, you will be attacked savagely.  So, kudos to those who put up a fight, including John Kerry.  

Vichy Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Joe Lieberman sold out, in Joe's case, a long time ago.  

Good post Matt.  You're honing your killer instinct to a razor edge.

As one of those who definitely felt (and still do) that blocking Alito was always a longshot, I admit that Matt's well-argued post argues effectively against that view.

But I keep coming back to the fact that a worse nominee, Thomas, got through a more Democratic Senate in October 1991.

I feel very strongly about abortion, probably more strongly than about any other single political issue. I hope and wish that Americans would react to this hypothetical campaign in the way Matt suggests. I'm not sure I buy it, though.  

I don't see this the same way.

The Old Line Orgs resist input from the netroots the same way the Democratic Old Guard resists it, and for the same reasons. It all about power and fiefdoms -- the Old Guard has theirs, and there is no way they will give it up to a bunch of outraged bloggers, even if we do have a better plan.

The key is to find a way to get them to see the light and work with us, without being threatened by our upstart activism.

Matt

We need a similar piece NOW for the mid-term strategy.

Let's then get the liberal blogosphere to force serious primaries where we get to back and hopefully elect focused fighters for the Nov mid-terms.

My gut tells me that the Dems and liberals will be equally disorganized and we will once again come up short this Nov.

If we don't want to be disappointed we need to act NOW. The primaries are only a few months away.

There is another way, especially if you are willing to get this level of organization. WIN ELECTIONS! The past is the past, now on to 2006!

ZenPolitics
www.zenpolitics.com

And we will continue to lose, for this is the old game plan.  It isn't organization, it is the idea that we can continue to fool the American voter.  I think they are on to the politics of indirection and deceit.  Bush responsible for the mining disaster?  Come on!

Matt, you focused on the right to abortion because it's supported by most Americans. The problem with that is that Bush and Alito wanting to take away the right to choose should have been only one of numerous messages. The RWNM is extremely good at getting out specific differentiated--and even strongly conflicting--messages to different targeted segments of their base via surrogates. Everything I have to say below relates to additional messages we should have targeted at particular segments of the popululation. That's the only thing I don't completely agree with you on. Everything else you had to say was, in my opinion, spot on and in fact gave me shivers as I read how a well executed operation would looked.

Pat Robinson and right-wing shock jocks spit out simple, aggressive, hateful messages to a specific market. Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer and others put out a completely different message. Some messages the RWNM puts out for one segment wouldn't have much impact on another segment or may even deeply unsettle them. They're pretty good at stopping message bleed (messages meant for one segment reaching another segment that ought not hear that message) but sometimes mess up - Pat Robinson calling for the assassination of foreign leaders bled out beyond the targeted segment and it caused a minor uproar.

To a certain less sinister degree we need to do something similar. Have surrogates push differentiated messages to specifically targeted segments of our base and the public in general:

* "Bush and Alito want to take away your right to choose."

* "Alito has discriminated against minorities and women since college, during his time working in the justice department and even as a judge"

* "Alito doesn't believe you have a right to privacy. He's happy to strip search your children, support warrantless wiretaps on your phone and internet conversations, support snooping into your medical and financial records, and invade the privacy of your home."

* "Alito is biased against everyday hardworking people like you and me."

* "Alito is an extremist that supports an all powerful executive branch." "If you thought federal government was too centralized before and trampled on your individual and state rights just wait until Alito turns the Presidency into an absolute monarchy"

The first and second points wouldn't be targeted at the south, whereas the third, fourth, and fifth points would play well everywhere but nowhere more strongly than in the south and mid-western states. An advertisement for the sixth point may look a little something like this:

Slowly the White House comes into focus and pictures of the most revered American presidents came up on screen one after the other as hail to the chief plays in the background. The voice over talks about the proud history of America, the American people, the great presidents and how America came into being by breaking free of the shackles of an oppressive monarchy and through great struggle, sacrifice and bloodshed established a representative elected government answerable to the people. Then a picture of Alito comes on screen and the voice over warns that now President Bush and his nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Alito, want to turn back the clock and create a all powerful King of America answerable to no one. There'd be the trumpet fan fair that people associate with Kings, a throne in the oval office and someone old and scary looking with a crown being placed on his head as people around him kneel. Then the voice over finishes saying that Judge Alito is an extremist nominee that is wrong for America and that the American people don't bow down or kneel for anyone.

Great advice, but I have to ask why this is being posted now, when it's too late. Shouldn't this have appeared months ago, when PFAW et al. might have acted on it? (If it did and I just didn't notice, I apologize.) Also, I have to wonder whether you're expecting too much of the pro-choice lobby. Their resources aren't unlimited, after all.

Perhaps in hindsight, the best advice would have been for all the Alito opponents to have formed a coalition for the campaign against him, thus pooling their resources - rather than working independently and thus being able to afford few big media buys. Also, the pro-choice lobby should have been preparing this campaign since Shrub's "re-"election. It's not as if this battle were some huge surprise!

The Alito nomination became a long-shot when the Miers nomination was mishandled by the Democrats. She was so obviously unqualified that she was an easy target. Democrats could have stopped her because she was so weak. (Rove being distracted, Bush' approval in the 30's were a bonus.) The reason for opposing her would be that she could not defend the Constitution.  That would be the criterion for the next nominee, and Alito would not have met it. It worked with Carswell & Bork.

Instead, Democrats did very little about Miers. She was defeated by the right wing because she was not right wing enough. That became the criterion for the next nominee, and Alito met it admirably. The right could not have planned it better.

When the Republicans are vulnerable, Democrats can't sit back and watch then reorganize. That is when they need to exert whatever power they have, and hold on hard to any gains they can get in that window.

Focussing on abortion energizes the right as much, if not more, than it energized the left.

(...look, they are so obsessed with abortion that they vote down a perfectly good judge...)

There was plenty wrong with Alito and Roberts that liberal groups didn't talk about because of the focus on abortion. This was a mistake and it played right into the hands of hte right.