“Today, a senior Democratic aide admitted the filibuster is a “long shot,” and that some Democrats who have announced their intention to vote against Alito have signaled they will not support a move to filibuster the vote.
“There are a lot more people that want to vote no and think he’s not the right guy, and a lot less people who want to support the filibuster,” one veteran aide said.
“The myopia among too many Senate Democrats is stunning,” the aide said. “They can’t see this is the fight for the future of the Supreme Court. Three years from now if Justice Alito has rolled back the right to choose, Democrats should want to be remembered for fighting tooth and nail to stop this guy.
“This is a fight for history, you can’t just take the issue off the table,” the aide continued. “Does the country understand what’s at stake right now? Probably not. But they will when Alito does damage to our Constitution, and if we don’t fight now, voters will say a pox on both our houses.”
>One aide said part of the problem is that Democratic senators haven’t felt a groundswell of opposition from constituents. Polls show that Alito’s nomination is supported by most Americans.
“People aren’t engaged in this fight,” one senior aide said. “The reality is this isn’t something that American people are calling in droves about. We’re getting more calls in on NSA spying than we are on Alito. Still, one aide close to the Democratic leadership said that they hadn’t given up hope of a filibuster.
“Things change every fifteen minutes,” the staffer quipped.”-excerpted from the post on RAW STORY.
Take this as your cue to CALL YOUR SENATOR NOW. Cross-posted at www.seattlefordean.com and www.howieinseattle.com.
Update [2006-1-26 1:32:10 by howieinseattle]: Democrats.com says the “Alito 8” are blocking a filibuster. They’ve got the phone numbers and the likely suspects. The Rude Pundit tells it as you would expect him to:
“So here’s the question that the Rude Pundit has for Senators Daniel Akaka, Max Baucus, Joe Biden, Robert Byrd, Kent Conrad, Tom Harkin, Jim Jeffords, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Frank Lautenberg, Patrick Leahy, Carl Levin, Joe Lieberman, Barbara Mikulski, Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, and Paul Sarbanes, who were there then and are there now: Do you wish you had filibustered Clarence Thomas now? Do you wish you had done everything you could even against the slim majority that supported Thomas?”
