We saw earlier Republicans lament the failure of Sotomayor to gin up passions with their base.
Nearly a month after President Barack Obama picked her for the Supreme Court, Republican senators say Sonia Sotomayor isn’t serving as the political lightning rod some in their party had hoped she would be.
“She doesn’t have the punch out there in terms of fundraising and recruiting, I think — at least so far,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who most likely will be elected as the No. 4 Republican in Senate leadership this week.
As I said (on Twitter) soon after the Sotomayor's nomination:
Libs knew we were beat when Bush nominated Roberts. Cons should feel the same way about Sotomayor, and live to fight another day.
But Republicans and their conservative allies are stupid. And rather than concede that Obama had nominated a conventional jurist who might even be slightly to the right of Souter, they reacted with hysteria. The party leadership, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, both accused Sotomayor of being racist (a claim bought by only 8 percent of Americans, including just 19 percent of Republicans). Others, led by Limbaugh and RNC Chair Michael Steele, launched a campaign against "empathy" which is serving to put it even further outside of the mainstream (see here, here, here, and here).
But perhaps the biggest misfire is what some smarter GOP strategists feared -- the further alienation of Latino voters. Check out the numbers from the R2K/dKos Weekly State of the Nation Poll:
Favorability of Republican Party among Latinos
May 18-21 (before the Sotomayor nomination)
Favorable 11
Unfavorable 79
No Opinion 10
June 15-18 (latest poll)
Favorable 8
Unfavorable 86
No Opinion 6
Yeah, the initial numbers were woefully bad for Republicans, but they somehow managed to alienate those few Latinos who didn't hate the GOP so much -- a drop of 10 points in net favorability, including losing almost half of the meager few Latinos who were undecided about the GOP. On the same question, African Americans are at 3/94, meaning that Republicans are doing a great job of turning Latinos into as solid a Democratic constituency as our party's most loyal voting bloc.
Of course, no one could've predicted that trashing a safe, conventional Latina jurist as a racist and caring (e.g. empathetic) person would further harm the GOP's standing among a demographic they desperately need to win to remain electorally relevant outside the South!
And to think that after all the damage they did to themselves, they couldn't even successfully fundraise off their manufactured hysteria.
My original advice still stands: Republicans should concede this one and focus on more fertile ground. Sotomayor is a done deal.