The Note, 5/27/2009: Empathetic Minds — Supreme Court battle rages — inside the GOP

By RICK KLEIN The battle over the Supreme Court is joined — with the Republican Party’s future in the balance. Save your empathy for this: The early split over Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination isn’t Democrats vs. Republicans; it’s Republicans vs. conservative interest groups (plus baseball metaphors vs. semantic soundness). So — while Joe Biden looks for his old Princeton cap — what if the pitcher’s duel turns into a rout? (And what if one team all but walks off the field?) Supreme Court nominations have gotten to the point now where there’s too much at stake for there not to be a fight, or at least a reasonable facsimile of one, to feed the media beast. Too many organizations raise and spend too many dollars for anything less to happen. But President Obama’s choice of Sotomayor has scrambled the typical with racial and gender politics — all in a compelling personal package, with perhaps just enough not said in her judicial opinions to create the kind of caricature you’d need to derail a nomination. There has to be a partisan fight — but since we’re looking at real-world consequences, this one may matter far more for what it means for the next battle. Until or unless there’s a bombshell, look for this fight to center on the timeframe, with Republicans arguing that confirmation can’t be squeezed in before the August break. That leaves the party more time to figure out what exactly it wants to do — and whether it’s best to just move on. “An all-out assault on Sotomayor by Republicans could alienate both Latino and women voters, deepening the GOP’s problems after consecutive electoral setbacks,” The Washington Post’s Shailagh Murray and Michael D. Shear report. “But sidestepping a court battle could be deflating to the party’s base and hurt efforts to rally conservatives going forward.”  “The conflicting pressures became clear throughout the day as conservative groups came out against Ms. Sotomayor,” The New York Times’ Adam Nagourney writes. “From the start, conservative leaders have made clear that they viewed the prospect of an ideologically charged nomination fight as a way to revive a movement that is lagging in spirits and funds.”  “Privately, [Republicans] glumly recognize the political reality — she’s a slam dunk for confirmation,” The New York Daily News’ Thomas M. DeFrank reports. “Republican leaders also understand — most of them, at least — that Sotomayor’s nomination is also a savvy political move by President Obama that puts the GOP in an electoral bind.” Citing Obama’s popularity and the Democratic majority, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., tells ABC’s Jonathan Karl, on “Good Morning America”: “She certainly stands in a good stead, but I do think it’s potentially a good teaching moment for the country.” “I think this is a bold and fairly masterful political stroke by President Obama,” GOP strategist Phil Musser said on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line.” “I mean, having older white senators up there grilling the first Hispanic – up-from-the-boot-straps, Hispanic Supreme Court nominee — that’s a tough one for us, okay, let’s just be honest about that.”  “Advisers calculated she would be the savviest move for the President to avoid an all-out battle over his Court nominee, according to sources close to the process,” ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg reports. “With the president hoping to achieve a crowning accomplishment in his first year with health care reform, advisers pointedly warned against another big fight elsewhere, sources said.”  The White House won’t play the game, “But the racial politics are there and unmistakable,” ABC’s Jake Tapper reports. “And in terms of pure optics — forgoing the merits of the Sotomayor nomination — that is something that Republicans are more than aware of, and sensitive about.”  Checking out those optics: “Caller after caller to a radio show popular in Central Florida’s booming Puerto Rican community gushed Tuesday over President Barack Obama’s decision to nominate one of their own to the nation’s highest court,” McClatchy’s Beth Reinhard and Lesley Clark report. “Even the Republicans.”  (While Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney and Rush Limbaugh blasted away, this was Gov. Charlie Crist, R-Fla.: “I’ll take a look at it.”) “President Barack Obama all but dared Senate Republicans to risk alienating Latinos by trying to block her confirmation,” Bloomberg’s James Rowley and Kim Chipman write.  Politico’s Mike Allen: “Worst-case scenario: cementing of stereotypes, and further minority alienation from the GOP. So there’ll be lots of posturing and theater and phony outrage. (One veteran tactician explains that both sides use these fights to set markers and send signals for the next pick.)”  “The split is just the latest public division within a party torn between efforts to broaden its base and a full-throated defense of issues like abortion that have deep resonance within the GOP base,” Politico’s Jeanne Cummings writes. “The filibuster is a particularly thorny issue for Senate Republicans, who railed against the Democrats for trying the tactic against Alito. Their mantra then: That the judicial nominees of President George W. Bush — or any president — deserve an up-or-down vote in the chamber.  Did Obama basically choose himself? “Her up-by-the-bootstraps tale, an only-in-America story that in many ways mirrors Mr. Obama’s own, is one reason for her selection, and it is the animating characteristic of her approach to both life and the law,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in The New York Times.  Why she’s going to be hard to box in: “Judge Sotomayor, whom President Obama announced Tuesday as his choice for the Supreme Court, has issued no major decisions concerning abortion, the death penalty, gay rights or national security,” Adam Liptak writes in his New York Times analysis.  “In selecting Sotomayor, Obama opted for biography over brain,” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank writes. “In Spanish, her surname can be translated as ‘big thicket’ — and that’s just where Republicans could find themselves if they oppose this up-from-poverty Latina.”  When in doubt, hang back a bit: “It’s no wonder that so many Republicans reacted to President Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court Tuesday by arguing that the confirmation process couldn’t be rushed: the GOP knows it has been dealt a bad hand, and it’s playing for time,” Time’s Jay Newton-Small reports.  “GOP senators seemed to be taking their cues from quieter voices within the party who cautioned that opposing the country’s first Hispanic Supreme Court nominee would amount to political suicide,” Tribune Co.’s Peter Wallsten and Richard Simon report.  “Republicans largely avoided direct criticism of Sotomayor, concentrating instead on warnings that Democrats should not rush the confirmation process,” CQ’s Keith Perine reports.  Are they sure they want this dragged out? “Though Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings could begin as early as July, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said it was unlikely the panel could finish the process before Congress’s August recess,” The Boston Globe’s Susan Milligan reports. “In a statement, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, pledged to treat Sotomayor fairly, but his spokesman would not rule out a GOP filibuster if Republicans find her views unacceptable.”  Think there will be some pressure — just a bit? “Judge Sotomayor seems to be the most radical person ever nominated for the high court,” reads the Washington Times editorial. “To continue to command public respect, the Senate will have to ask her some hard questions. The simplest one to ask will be the hardest one for her to answer: Given her statements against whites and males, can she be fair to all Americans?”  “I’m not really interested in hearing their enthusiasm for an Hispanic now, after blocking Miguel Estrada,” Ann Coulter told Diane Sawyer on “GMA,” saying that she has made “racist” comments. “Why are we all supposed to weep only when it’s a liberal Hispanic, or a liberal black?” Should there be a filibuster? “I think there should be — they ought to follow the lead of the president of the United States,” Coulter said. “Who knows? Public opinion can change things.” Scott Wheeler, of the National Republican Trust: “Republican Senators should strongly oppose her nomination.  The NRT PAC and their constituents will hold them accountable if they do not.” The identity fight the GOP has been waiting for? “The real test is whether the Bush-Rove-Cheney-Steele-Limbaugh party that is currently leading Republicans into the political abyss decides to unleash its name-calling right-wing dogs, or whether Republicans do what is smart and realize that Judge Sotomayor is immensely qualified to be on the Supreme Court and let it go,” Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis writes for The Hill.  The GOP upside? “If the ultimate goal for Republicans is to defeat Obama in 2012, then the Sotomayor pick presents them with a golden opportunity to cast the president as a traditional liberal — far from the post-partisan figure he was able to present to the American public in the 2008 election,” Washingtonpost.com’s Chris Cillizza writes.  The stimulus turns 100 days old on Wednesday — look for a report from Vice President Joe Biden championing its accomplishments. President Obama will address that same subject at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. He closes out his night with a DNC fundraiser in Beverly Hills, Calif. What else makes the trip to out west worth it (and, oh yeah, Reid raised $2 million Monday night): “Obama and Reid are friends indeed,” reads the headline in the Las Vegas Sun.  Watch the myth become legend: “To many, Obama and Reid seem the unlikely match — the president who speaks poetry that inspires the masses and the majority leader who puts them to sleep,” the Sun’s Lisa Mascaro and Michael Mishak report. “Yet the two share a history as sons of hard times. Early on, Reid pulled an unsure Obama aside in the Senate and encouraged him to run for president. By fall’s election, they were speaking almost daily. When Reid needed to call candidates off the trail for important votes in the Senate, Obama was there.”  And Reid is still figuring out where he wants Guantanamo Bay detainees. In an interview with Jon Ralston, he points out that at “a maximum security prison in the United States, there has never been a single escape.” Asked whether that means the plan is putting detainees in “maximum security prisons here in this country,” Reid responds, “I think some.” (h/t The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder)  Tracking healthcare: “President Obama’s campaign to cut health costs by $2 trillion over the next decade, announced with fanfare two weeks ago, may have hit another snag: the nation’s antitrust laws,” Robert Pear writes in The New York Times. “Antitrust lawyers say doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and drug makers will be running huge legal risks if they get together and agree on a strategy to hold down prices and reduce the growth of health spending.”  On the other side: “Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a conservative advocacy organization, on Wednesday plans to launch a $1.7 million television-advertising campaign that negatively likens the U.S. health-care system envisioned by lawmakers to Canada’s publicly administered system,” Janet Adamy writes in The Wall Street Journal.  California fallout: “Though widely anticipated, the California Supreme Court’s decision today to uphold the November ballot measure that banned gay marriage induced anger, tears and vows to intensify the fight for equal rights for same-sex couples to marry,” the Los Angeles Times’ Carol J. Williams writes. “But the most poignant reaction to the 6-1 ruling was among the gay community, where couples — married and not — saw the high court decision as a retreat from its ruling just a year ago that marriage was a fundamental right of all couples, regardless of sexual orientation.”  The next step — from the press release: Theodore B. Olson and David Boies will announce a federal court challenge to Proposition 8 on Wednesday, May 27 at 9:30 a.m. [PT] in Downtown, LA. The suit was filed by two same-sex couples who wish to be married but have been denied marriage licenses because of Proposition 8. Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., caught on tape: “A month before his appointment to the U.S. Senate, Roland Burris agonized with the brother of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich about how to raise campaign cash for the governor without creating the perception he was buying his way into Congress, according to a federal wiretap unveiled Tuesday,” the Chicago Tribune’s Jeff Coen and John Chase report. “Burris said he would make a personal donation but worried that both he and the governor could eventually ‘catch hell’ for any campaign help Burris gave as he lobbied for Blagojevich to choose him.”  Why Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., isn’t running for mayor (other than the fact that Michael Bloomberg is rich): “What has animated me most during these past months is how much Washington has changed, and the potential for greater movement still,” Weiner writes in a New York Times op-ed. “With a progressive sweep in all branches of the federal government, major economic reform, a new energy bill and an overhaul of health care ahead, this is a moment when ideas matter. I’ve had to evaluate what I could accomplish in Washington if I was in a heated campaign in New York City at the same time.”  Annals of Dodd: “Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd is gaining on former U.S.  Rep. Rob Simmons, a possible Republican challenger, and now trails 45-39 percent in the 2010 Senate race, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. This compares to a 50-34 percent Simmons lead in an April 2 poll.” The Kicker: “And if I do get appointed, that means I bought it.” — Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., secretly recorded offering to (and fretting about whether to) write a check to Rod Blagojevich. “I’m not sure today is the day I’d make that argument.” — White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, playing media critic with the AP. Today on “Top Line,” ABCNews.com’s daily political Webcast: Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, and Ana Marie Cox of Air America. Noon ET.  Follow The Note on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thenote For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/