Support for Alito's confirmation grew after widely televised confirmation hearings, the poll found. Before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, held January 11-13, 49 percent of respondents backed his nomination. In the poll released Monday, 54 percent expressed support.That says a lot about the quality of the Democratic Senators' presentation at the hearings. They were not able to gain one percentage point of opposition. You'd think that many people would, without giving it much thought, support a President's nominee initially. The 49 percent figure going into the hearing may show that. But the hearings should have eroded that high level of support at least a bit, and surely, some of the 21 percent undecided should have taken the negative position. Yet the hearings won Alito 5 additional points.
The percentage of people who opposed his confirmation remained unchanged [at 30 percent] after the hearings, Monday's poll found.
Clearly, the Democrats' strategy was poor. But exactly why was it so poor? I've said before that I think it's a mistake to portray judicial decisionmaking as a political enterprise, which is what they did, leaving Alito to prevail by doggedly explaining legal doctrine in response to every attempt at an attack. I think people want the Court to decide cases based on the law and want to believe a judge can do that. If so, the Democrats' attack on Alito would look ugly and offensive.
But it may be that a lot of people really do think the Court is political. If so, the Democrats have an entirely other reason to worry. It would mean that people want the Court to take the political positions the Democratic Senators assumed we would be outraged by. It's hard to say which issues would be most influential, but I note that the Senators tried very hard to frighten Americans about strong presidential power.
The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said last week he believed Alito would fail to check what he views as the president's inappropriate expansion of executive power.Perhaps most Americans disagree.
"I'm not going to lend my support to an effort by this president to move the Supreme Court and the law radically to the right and to remove the final check within our democracy," Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Thursday.
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Interesting points. I rather think there may be several factors at work here. The performance by many of the Senators did not inspire trust in their abilities or judgement. Frankly, out here in silent majority land, the scandal of the day club no longer draws any real attention. They have tried so hard to whip up a frenzy over so many non-issues that they have reached "boy who cried wolf" status. They are not getting traction with their hysteria because it is seen as hysteria, not something to actually feel threatened by.
I think Alito handled things just right, his measured responses to overblown phoney outrage played very well with the public at large.
I will point out that a 5 percentage point change is within the noise of the statistics. But I guess a story about a change in opinion that isn't a change isn't a story.
It's unfortunate that journalists writing about polls are so innumerate (Innumeracy is one of my favorite books).
Kohl votes no in committee.
Just keeping you updated, Prof.
Gerry: I only mean "should" in the sense that the hearings should have diminished the support from the unthinking presumption level IF the Democrats had a good presentation. But it's possible that nothing the Democrats could have done would have won them any more support. Maybe all other approaches would have done worse.
Mark Kaplan: You mean Kelo.
Madisonman: You're right, and I shouldn't have glossed over that. And it's also true, as Gerry said that people may have switched categories, so that maybe the 30% against Alito had a different set of people in the end.
"I'm not going to lend my support to an effort by this president to move the Supreme Court and the law radically to the right and to remove the final check within our democracy."
"The final check"? Leahy's statement embodies the Dems' philosophy that anything other than their hegemony is fascism, that the progressive doctrine is the good and default position--and America doesn't agree with that. In fact, a right leaning Court would effectively balance the progressives' march to the sea of the last 30 years. Liberalism accomplished many good things; now is the time for thoughtful reticence.
I always had this strange notion that the Courts, Congress, and the Executive were the checks against abuse eachother. Not the political movements inside each.
But it is interesting to see Leahy admit that the Court is a lefty organization at the moment as he complains that it may not be in the future.
Mark:
"Where the heck did Leahy "admit" that the Court was "lefty"?"
Leahy:
"I'm not going to lend my support to an effort by this president to move the Supreme Court and the law radically to the right and to remove the final check within our democracy."
Radically to the right. Where exactly does Leahy believe it's sitting currently? If having someone who may (or may not) decide to overturn Roe vs. Wade (a leftist cause) would push the Court to the 'radical' right, then he's making it plainly obvious that the Court is sitting in the left's camp.
PatCA,
I read Leahy's statement differently - - that he was saying two different things. One, that Bush wants to move the Supreme Court even further to the right. And two, that by nominating Alito (who is deferential to presidential power), the Supreme Court won't be a good check against the executive branch.
As for the first charge, who does Leahy expect a Republican president to nominate? A liberal? And as for the second charge, who can say for sure just how much the S.C. will defer to presidential power in the particular cases that might come before it in the future?
I think the Democratic Senators should vote to confirm Alito. Someday, hopefully soon, there will be a Democratic president, and the tables will be turned.
The strategy and position that the Dem's are postulating on Justices is suicidal personally and ultimately will cripple the US judicial system IMHO.
1. They are driving toward a party line vote on a nominee that received a unanimous "highly recommended" recommendation (this used to be the gold standard for Dem's) from the ABA. 15 years of experience, etc, etc.
2. The Rep's clearly recognize this partisan approach and threaten to apply the same standard to nominees from Democratic Presidents.
Sen. Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., warned that Republicans would remember a party-line Alito vote in future Supreme Court nominations, considering several Republicans voted for Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who were nominated by President Clinton.
"It is simply unrealistic to think that one party would put itself at a disadvantage by eschewing political considerations while the other party almost unanimously applies such considerations," Kyl said. "So I say to my Democratic friends: Think carefully about what is being done today. Its impact will be felt well beyond this particular nominee."
3. Given that the Rep's have a 62 vote natural majority in red state Senate seats, this ultimately would lead to the inability of any Democratic President to get ANY judge approved.
4. Ultimate politicization or melt down of our judicial system.
a travesty.
I meant "highly qualified" not recommended
OT:
Beldar: As a guy who has had a heart attack, talking to a another guy who has had a heart attack, the lack of postings on your blog had me more than a little concerned. I've missed your acerbic wit since October and the Meirs debacle.
Glad to see you're still around.
I agree with what the Drill Sgt wrote.
I read that same quote earlier and thought the Dems were putting themselves into a real box. Who the hell is coming up with their strategy? Alfred E. Newman?
I can only log on and see "World Series (Central time zone)" so many times. Glad to see you're still kicking Beldar!
David - I don't know that I agree with you. What's the common sense meaning of the second amendment? Where are all of the well regulated militias? Is Bernie Goetz a well-regulated militia? Hey, don't call me a liberal, I'm just interpreting the Constitution in a common-sense fashion! If common-sense interpretations of the Constitution were so simple, there wouldn't be as much debate about them as we currently have.
I for one am at a loss to come up with a common sense definition of "new age interpretation of the Constitution."
And, for the record, the majority of Americans live on either the East or the West coast. The flyover states betsowed majority status upon themselves at some point during the tenure of Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the United States. If they're so much in the majority, why do the Constitutional Amendments they continue to propose keep going nowhere?
I'm not sure that statement is correct, Terrence.
http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/512popdn.pdf
Damn pesky facts. Interfering with the overall truthiness and all......
To which facts do you refer? All I see is a lot of empty space.
Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota taken together are larger than France but have a combined population of less than Chicago. Alaska is even larger, and has even fewer people.
Brooklyn, taken on its own, would be the fourth-most populous city in the country, and yet it is just one of the five boroughs of New York City. I could keep going. Your map proves very little.
Ok, this is quick and dirty:
Using raw data from here:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-PH1-R&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-redoLog=false&-format=US-9S&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_GCTPH1R_US9S
And simply taking raw counts by state only
Coast states population:
Appox 148 million
All others
Appox 134 million
The difference is less than 5%.
However, it's more complicated that just the raw number. Having lived there, I can state that while NYC is overwhelmingly Democrat, Upstate is most definitely not. In fact Upstate more closely resembles the Midwest in makeup and political view than it does the East coast.
I'm rather sure from these numbers that the assertion that the majority live on the coasts would be an overstatement. The assertion would be true if expessed as the majority live in coastal states. However, the difference is very small even then.
Dismissing the "flyover" states is not a good idea, since they do actually represent a majority in the Senate.
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