There’s a certain political reality that was hard to escape during John Roberts’ confirmation process — Republicans had 55 seats in the Senate and nary a one was prepared to break party ranks on this nomination. Can the same be said about Harriet Miers? I’m not entirely sure.<\/p>\n
About a week ago, the NYT had an item<\/a> about Senate Republicans’ unease over this nomination. A handful of moderates (Chafee, Snowe) said they were prepared to vote with Dems if Bush’s choice to replace Sandra Day O’Connor was rigidly conservative. There were, perhaps more importantly, a handful of hard-line conservatives (Brownback, Coburn) also expressing their willingness to vote against the nominee unless he or she is sufficiently conservative.<\/p>\n This, alas, was the beauty of the Roberts pick; Bush threaded the needle. I have to assume, by picking someone with hardly any public record at all, the White House thought it pull the same trick twice. I’m just not convinced it’s going to work.<\/p>\n With Roberts, it was a foregone conclusion. Ann Coulter said that “compared to what we know about John Roberts, Souter was a dream nominee,” and one fringe group got an AP feed<\/a> out of announcing its opposition, but that was about it. <\/p>\n Miers isn’t Roberts. For one thing, Republicans are being asked to swallow hard over the fact that Miers donated campaign cash to a handful of Dems<\/a> in the 1980s, including Al Gore’s initial presidential campaign, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas), and the Democratic National Committee.<\/p>\n To appreciate the breadth of conservative concerns, consider the reactions from the right side of the blogosphere, with links pulled from Ezra<\/a> and Kevin<\/a>: * K-Lo<\/a> — “[N]ear everyone I’ve talked to this morning feels demoralized (albeit some to differing degrees) with the Miers pick.”<\/p>\n * Bill Kristol<\/a> — “I’M DISAPPOINTED, depressed and demoralized.”<\/p>\n * John Hinderaker<\/a> — “A Disappointment.”<\/p>\n * Jonathan Adler<\/a> — “[T]he GOP base is dispirited by this nomination.”<\/p>\n
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\n* Red State<\/a> — “I think I’ll let the President fight this battle himself, for now.”<\/p>\n