Over Before It Began

Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSBlog knows a few things about judicial nomination fights, and he says that the Sotomayor fight is pretty much over and has been for some time.

Basically before it ever started, the fight over the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor is done. She is going to be confirmed by a relatively wide margin and without a substantial, mainstream assault on her credentials or suitability for the bench.

To be clear at the outset, this is a descriptive point, not a normative one. I'm explaining the political reality, not how the process should go forward. I actually think that nominees should be subject to a substantial, sustained inquiry into their judicial philosophy and intellect.

But that isn't the world in which we live, or in which this particular nomination will proceed. The phase of defining a nominee in the public's eye now lasts around forty-eight hours. In that time Harriet Miers was pretty much done - finished. By this point, there has been a huge amount of press coverage and opponents have had the opportunity to make their case. It's a shockingly short period (unfortunately so), but it reflects (a) the ready availability of research materials, and (b) the rapid turn-over of news cycles.

For a nominee like Sonia Sotomayor, that is the life-or-death period. Once the public is comfortable with her suitability, then the irreducible political reality is that there is no serious prospect of vigorously challenging the nation's first Latina Supreme Court nominee when the President's party has an overwhelming numerical advantage in the Senate.

The collapse of serious opposition also becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Potential donors to conservative advocacy groups - perceiving neither a grave threat to their core values nor a real prospect of wounding an opposing President by defeating the nomination - will minimize their financial support, particularly in this economy.

Without a public drumbeat of concern - and with the press's attention inevitably shifting away - the opposition outside the circle of committed advocates is almost certain to run out of gas by the weekend, a full five or six weeks before the hearings begin. There could be a burst of revitalizing energy with the disclosure of some ethical transgression, but zero reason to believe that will actually happen.

And you notice that the GOP has basically stopped trying to attack her. They have their own problems now, and frankly they don't have the energy or luxury to spend that energy on Sotomayor with the Obamacare train coming at them full speed.