Charlie Savage, the ace reporter now with the New York Times, has a short article today that anyone interested in the Supreme Court should want to read. It was covered in calchala's diary earlier today, but because many (most?) people here don't always read nytimes.com I think it's worth calling more people's attention to it.
Part of the article isn't surprising: the Republicans are doing oppo research on a bunch of potential candidates and planning to fill in a name and roll out a campaign against them as soon as they can. That's no surprise; we'd do the same. (Or we should be prepared to, at least if Republicans nominates objectionable candidates, as they generally try to do.)
There are some real points of interest in the article, though, which bear some emphasis.
The lines of attack listed are no surprise:
What they plan to say:
Diane Wood: supports "partial-birth abortion" (as they call it), anti-"religious freedom"
Sonia Sotomayor: wants to expand Constitutional rights beyond the Constitutional text
Kathleen Sullivan: prominent supporter of homosexual marriage
Elena Kagan: considers foreign law of persuasive authority to interpreting U.S. law
Kim Wardlaw: "voted to deny an appeal in a death penalty case, to allow a city to display a Ten Commandments monument, and to allow a police force to fire an officer who sold sexually explicit videos of himself and claimed to be protected by the First Amendment" -- actually, they don't have much problem with any of that, which is one reason you should not be rooting for the appointment of Kim Wardlaw.
One interesting thing Savage notes is that while they have files on almost forty people, they have compiled talking points memos on only ten, all women: the above five plus federal appellate judges Johnnie Rawlinson and Ann Williams; federal district judge Martha Vasquez; former assistant solicitor general Beth Brinkmann; and Georgia Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears. (I think I've mentioned this before, but Rawlinson, though a black female Democrat, would be an absolute disaster for progressives. Just read her decisions. She would fit comfortably in the conservative bloc, and not necessarily at the left end of it. I would call for Democrats to filibuster her.)
Here, though, is what I want to highlight:
While conservatives say they know they have little chance of defeating Mr. Obama’s choice because Democrats control the Senate, they say they hope to mount a fight that could help refill depleted coffers and galvanize a movement demoralized by Republican electoral defeats.
"It’s an immense opportunity to build the conservative movement and identify the troops out there," said Richard A. Viguerie, a conservative fund-raiser. "It’s a massive teaching moment for America. We’ve got the packages written. We’re waiting right now to put a name in."
Republicans think -- and not without reason -- that a plurality of voters are with them on the sorts of issues that the Supreme Court addresses. This is not so much because the voters are deeply committed to these positions, but because the conservative positions on so many issues cater so powerfully to the primative and emotional parts of the psyche and lend themselves so well to sound bites. I'm sure most people here can generate their own examples. Liberal positions -- on issues ranging from civil rights and civil liberties and beyond -- are more complicated, not "raw meat" for most of the public.
So Republicans are right: this is a teachable moment. They can probably convince a lot of people, by beating up on Obama's Supreme Court nominee, to veer towards their side. They will probably raise a lot of money over this. (Richard Viguerie, the Thomas Edison of direct mail, is no dummy.)
What that means is that it has to be a teachable moment for us, too. We have to be prepared to grab the bull by the horns when the name comes down and explain that they were right -- constitutionally -- about gay marriage, about free speech, about foreign law, or whatever else.
What we learn in Savage's article is that a fight is coming. (Or a storm, if you must.) It's not going to be a fight about approving a nominee -- they've already given up on blocking someone. It's going to be a fight about the "values" focus that worked for the Republicans in 2000 and 2004. I don't think we're prepared for it yet; we think that this is about approving a nominee. We will win that fight. We have to prepare for the other one -- the one that we now know that the Republicans are prepareing to fight -- as well.