The nineteen Democratic senators who voted for cloture on the nomination of Samuel Alito need to experience what Specter did during his last re-election.
You'll recall that in 2004, Sen. Specter faced a furious challenge from the Club for Growth. Specter has been widely considered a moderate. The Club for Growth is a club and a PAC that exists to "elect pro-growth candidates." What that means in practice is making the Bush tax cuts permanent, repealing the estate tax, among other things. So basically, he was challenged from his conservative flank by Rep. Pat Toomey.
He won, barely, 51-49%, with the support of President Bush and his fellow Pennsylvanian, Rick Santorum. Then, the Republican Party threatened to take away his chairmanship of the judiciary committee, largely because he had warned Bush against offering up pro-life judicial nominees. Sen. Specter ended up surrendering his dignity and his principles, promising to push Bush's nominees through to stay as committee chair. He has kept his promise, as we have seen with Alito and Roberts, among others. The 2005 ratings from the American Conservative Union haven't come out yet, but from 2003-2004 he jumped 10 points, from 65 to 75. We can get similar results with similar tactics.
We need to give every single one of the nineteen Democratic senators who voted for cloture a serious, progressive primary challenge , especially blue state senators like Joe Lieberman, Maria Cantwell, and Thomas Carper. They can't even plead the conservatism of their home state. If they lose in the primary, fine. If not, perhaps they will learn their lesson, like Senator Specter did.
Lieberman, Dan Akaka, and Maria Cantwell already have primary or probable primary challengers, that I know of. (Ned Lamont, Rep. Ed Case, and Mark Wilson, respectively.) It's a good start.
www.nedlamont.com
http://www.edcase.com/...
http://votemark.org/
Here is a list of the "Alito 19":
Daniel Akaka (Hawaii)
Max Baucus (Montana)
Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico)
Robert Byrd (West Virginia)
Maria Cantwell (Washington state)
Tom Carper (Delaware)
Kent Conrad (North Dakota)
Byron Dorgan (North Dakota)
Daniel Inouye (Hawaii)
Tim Johnson (South Dakota)
Herb Kohl (Wisconsin)
Mary Landrieu (Louisiana)
Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut)
Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas)
Ben Nelson (Nebraska)
Bill Nelson (Florida)
Mark Pryor (Arkansas)
Jay Rockefeller (West Virginia)
Ken Salazar (Colorado)