That she passed the Senate hardly seems like news, since it’s Democrat-controlled; that she was made the nominee at all is still the story, and the best kind of story.
The worst part of this otherwise lovely story isn’t that 31 Republican senators voted against her. They’re within their rights to do so, even if some of them opposed her for offensive reasons. That’s on the people who elected them.
The worst part of the story is how the GOP, even knowing they were going to lose the vote, strove for absolute unity. They used every trick available to them, and some insults that shouldn’t have been, not just to make her look bad, but to make it plain that anyone — any Republican — voting for her was not really one of them. This is the stimulus bill all over again, but this time, there were defectors. Good for them, I say. Good for the nine brave Republicans who voted for Sotomayor: Senators Alexander (Tenn.), Bond (Mo.), Collins (Maine), Graham (S.C.), Gregg (N.H.), Lugar (Ind.), Martinez (Fla.), Snowe (Maine), and Voinovich (Ohio).
So what does it mean to defect? Well, other than Lindsey Graham probably losing Most Favored Yes-Man status with John McCain, it could have some lasting election effects for a few of these folks, and for the Democrats who voted in favor, too. The New York Times called the National Rifle Association to see whether they would be using the Sotomayor vote as a litmus test for their support of candidates — including Democrats — in the future. The group’s spokesman apparently said they aren’t sure, but I find the question a bit preposterous. The NRA wasn’t even a force in this debate until Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, asked them to make a vote for Sotomayor a black mark on a Senator’s “gun rights” record.
Digby wondered why McConnell would pursue that strategy even knowing, as he did, that the Sotomayor vote was lost for Republicans. I think he brought in the big guns — pun intended — not just to fight this nomination, but to prepare for the upcoming election. More and more I believe that the 2010 election will be fought and decided on the question of party loyalty, and that guys like McConnell and Boehner are keeping very careful score. A vote against Sotomayor might take some of these folks out of the good graces of the NRA, which might be enough to justify a primary opponent for someone like Kit Bond, who’s up for election in 2010.
I don’t want to see Bond win — but I really don’t want to see him lose to a Republican even less likely to join the logical side in a debate like this. Yet I really think that the GOP might start eating its own in 2010 with votes just like this, a strategy that could rebuild their party into either a small, irrelevant band of miscreants or into a unified, fear-driven monster where everyone votes in perfect lockstep without the need for thought. I find both possibilities terrifying.
What gives me hope is that these nine Republican senators and 59 of their Democrat colleagues (and probably Ted Kennedy, in spirit) voted the right way despite that pressure; even the Democrats who had something to lose in going against the NRA went so far as to say they don’t care. What gives me hope is that Mitch McConnell brought in the big guns and still lost. What gives me hope is the 68 that voted in favor.
Congratulations, Judge Sotomayor, and President Obama, and, well, to the rest of us.
SATURN SMITH 