I generally disasgree with Senator Kerry on political strategy (and his 04 campaign) however this time he is right and Markos/Kid Oakland are dead wrong.
We'll ignore the obvious reason why Scalito should never be allowed to replace Sandra Day O'Connor.
It's pretty clear after the physician assisted suicide vote where Roberts voted with Scalia that Alito is to the right/wrong of Roberts. (If democrats had a message machine "right wing activist judge" would become part of the vocabulary)
These are some of the political reasons why filibuster must be attempted.
1. Why should any of the activists/"base" continue to bother voting in elections if the dems NEVER fight for anything that is right? Given they have no power in this congress the filibuster is the only thing numerically in their favor (on paper at least.) Why Ms Landrieux, Mr Obama, Mr Lautenburg, Mr Dayton should I care if you lose your seat? Why should I bother to vote or donate money or time if having 45 democratic-leaning senators is not enough? Well, the incentive should be that keeping more than 41 senators as dems is a good thing because a filibuster can be invoked.
Quite honestly if they don't filibuster now they never will and its just as good as not ever having the option.
- This filibuster has nothing to do with abortion. That should be enough to give red state dems political cover. Executive power run amok, more corporate power, less power for the common man, spying without warrants etc... Do we really need to go overall the scarry alito rulings and opinions?
- The dems have a reputation of being wusses and never fighting. Guess what, this is another of those reinforcing events if they don't even try. Dems=Wussies (kerry= pink french poodle actually used in the 2004 election).
- The media will be totally shocked. The media is expecting the dems to fold as always and play their "role". The media coverage alone would be worth it.
- Bush needs weeks and weeks to prepare for the state of the union. If the dems had a Karl Rove they would hide this and then filibuster Tuesday not giving Bushco enough time to prepare to incorporate it into the state of the union.
CAN YOU IMAGINE THE STATE OF THE UNION BEING UPSTAGED BY FILIBUSTER and not having to deal with Bush's messaging about terrorism, NSA, and the economy in HIS terms? This alone if there are any dems with a brain is worth it.
- Even if they fail, at least they tried. It gives the base and others at least a pretense to bother voting for them.
- Alito will be deciding on cases involving Gitmo and the NSA, how stupid would the dems be to put him in as a decision maker.
I can understand Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Mark Pryor (AR) voting for cloture (and forgive them). I can not excuse Cantwell (Wa), Lautenberg (NJ), Menendez (NJ), Sarbanes (Md), or Evan Bayh (If he wants to run for president.)
I don't doubt for one minute that Kerry may be doing this to give a boast to his 08 aspirations (please don't run), but you can be right for the wrong reasons. If the dems don't try it, there will be more and more people giving less time and money to support them in the future. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If the dems don't fight for this why should we think they'll fight in the future.