The Stakes For Next Time

Ed Whelan lays out what Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have to do in this weeks confirmation hearings on Chief Justice-designate John Roberts:

Seeking the easiest path to reelection, committee Republicans may be tempted merely to paint Roberts as a genial moderate and emphasize his impeccable credentials. But if they do not respond to the Democrats' attacks on Roberts — and to the "balance" argument — by defending principles of judicial restraint, they will make the president's next nomination more difficult and undermine the very reason that so many voters elected them in the first place.

The Roberts confirmation hearing is a prelude to the upcoming fight over the other vacancy. If Democrats are able to smear, and vote against, Roberts without paying a political price for it, they will be emboldened in that next fight.

Let no Senate Pachyderm kid him/herself. The Supreme Court is the issue on which continued Republican control of the U.S. Senate will hinge in 2006. For the past three election cycles it has been the wedge used by the GOP to regain and expand its majority in the upper chamber. If this majority we, the base, have installed doesn't deliver both by confirming JR and a conservative replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor and by doing pitched battle with the opposition forces of judicial tyranny, the Party can forget about the record-breaking GOTV efforts of the past few years, and prepare lamenting its lost golden opportunity.