It's on

[ebonlock]

Sweet baby Jesus, the filibuster is on!

Dear MoveOn Member,

Late yesterday afternoon, Senators Kerry and Kennedy announced that they will lead a filibuster against the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. The vote will come Monday, and now the rest of the Democrats have just over 48 hours to decide which side they are on.

To successfully block the nomination, 41 senators must join the Democratic filibuster. Most Republicans and a few conservative Democrats have already pledged to vote for Alito, so getting to 41 won't be easy. Every single Democrat could end up casting the last crucial vote—and this is the moment for us to weigh in.

Have you contacted your Senators yet?

Sure we may not win this fight, but dammit I'd rather try and fail than just stand by with my thumb up my ass. It doesn't take much to make a phone call or drop an email, just take a few minutes and let your elected officials know that we're holding them accountable for their actions.

Edit
According to the Majority Report this fight might not be as hopeless as it seemed:

Ben Nelson (NE) originally stated he would vote Yes for Alito. But it looks like he is putting his finger in the wind. He is now taking calls and tallies as well: 202-224-6551 .

Bill Nelson (FL) SAYS HE IS NOT HEARING FROM ENOUGH CONSTITUENTS! DC Phone: 202-224-5274 . He is hearing from tons of right-wingers who are saying that he should not filibuster!

Ken Salazar (D-CO) is taking your calls now regarding whether or not he should support the filibuster! Call the toll free line - 1-888-355-3588 (PRESS 2) . OR FAX: Senator Salazar: 202-228-5036 (DC FAX) .

As one of the commentors on Eschaton noted, "Really, if we're not going to fight over this, what are we going to fight over?"

Word.

Update:
I know I quote Digby a lot, but damn:

The chattering classes are all very sure that the Democrats have made a grave mistake on Alito. According to reports in the press, many insider Democrats believe this too. I believe they are wrong. This may look like a ragged strategy in some respects, but it is good for us to be seen doing things that have no obvious political advantage and for which we can legitimately claim to have taken the moral high ground. Yes, the tittering congnoscenti will flutter their fans and whisper that Democrats are witless and dull, but in this case we are talking directly to the people not to them. They have no idea anymore that a world exists out here where poltical calculation is beside the point.

Regardless of how this comes out in the end, and we don't know until the votes are cast, this may be seen as a defining moment for the Democratic Party. When a calculating political creature like Dianne Feinstein rushes to support a filibuster rather than reaffirm her opposition once conventional wisdom says a filibuster will fail, is meaningful. Democratic politicians (if not their moribund strategists) are feeling the pressure from the people to do the right thing.

Comments

There is only one question...

[scoreboard.livejournal.com]

Hang the principles and the tactics and everything else - the only thing to consider in anything the Democrats do for the next year is this:

"Will this help us win control of at least one house of Congress?"

If the answer is no, then no matter how right or decent or honorable it is, it's not worth doing. Nothing the Democrats can say or do matters one iota in the universe until they are in a position to exercise power. Anything and everything they do has to be focused on getting into the majority.

Ideally, the Senate would be best - partly for the sake of confirmations and preserving the filibuster, but mainly because the Senate is the place where the rectangular states gain wildly disproportinate power. (The 44 Dem Senators represent many, many more actual voters than the 56 GOPs.)

Re: There is only one question...

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

"Will this help us win control of at least one house of Congress?"

And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad position to hold, but realistically speaking, can you say that you truly believe the current Democratic party leadership has even the vaguest clue what it'll take to do that? It's like they're trying to win a street fight by adhering strictly to the Marquis of Queensbury rules.

We've spent the past 5+ years letting the GOP tell the public that we're wimps, elitists, political game players. How do you reverse that? By fighting back. To be honest I'd prefer that my party picked its fights based on the core beliefs of its constituents rather than on a cost-benefit analysis of what it might mean to our political chances in 2006. But that's just me.

[scoreboard.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Dems have anything in the way of leadership. I think we see way way way too much of the old guard out front - Kennedy, Biden, Kerry, a bunch of has-beens (and in Biden's case, a never-was). Which is why I think they need to put the young talent out front sooner rather than later.

Of course, they also need a simple narrative, one that will cut through GOP obfuscation, media idiocy, and general public inattention. When Ford's laying off a quarter of its workers, GM's having its worst financial performance in a decade and a half, companies are defaulting on their pensions, there's no end to the war in sight, Medicare's gone pear-shaped and the President's gone completely crooked in full public view? It should be a nice easy combination of "Had enough?" and "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

The time to start fighting was January 2001. For that, Daschle deserves what he got. But if they go out there now and start swinging in a way that fits into the media's pre-fab framework of "loony feckless Democrats from the 80s acting foolish," the end result will be worse than if they did nothing.

In short, if I don't see Barack Obama on every channel but Sci-Fi, somebody's fucking up. ;]

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

In short, if I don't see Barack Obama on every channel but Sci-Fi, somebody's fucking up. ;]

I'd add Murtha and Dean to that list, myself, but I have a fondness for Howard that I know a lot of Dems don't share.