June 29, 2005
By FRANK JAMES AND MIKE DORNING
Chicago Tribune
The faceless narrator in the commercial accuses Democrats of mindlessly opposing anyone President Bush might nominate to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.
The voice recites harsh anti-Republican quotes from Democratic chairman Howard Dean and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid as their images flash onscreen. "Democrats will attack anyone the president nominates," he says. "But a Supreme Court nominee deserves real consideration, instead of instant attacks."
The ad, sponsored by a Republican interest group little known outside of Washington, is just one measure of the new politics of judicial nominations. A convergence of technology, record levels of funding and a polarized political climate is shaping the fight for justices on the Supreme Court.
And it's all about a battle that has not even officially been joined by an actual retirement from the court.
With much of Washington speculating about the retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, who is suffering from thyroid cancer, interest groups on both sides of the political divide are bracing for a war like no other over a prospective replacement.
For their part, a coalition of Democratic-aligned groups discussed in their daily meetings whether to launch their own pre-emptive strike to promote their message that Bush should pick someone acceptable to conservatives and liberals alike.
Ultimately they chose not to do so, in part because they thought it would be in bad taste. But they haven't stinted in preparing for a potential vacancy on the nation's highest court - assembling a war chest of millions of dollars, readying armies of thousands of volunteers and preparing to saturate the airwaves with ads, flood Capitol Hill with lobbyists, and target voters in states where senators could provide swing votes.
They see the prospect of a new justice through the prism of their narrow interest and critical to the fate of landmark Supreme Court precedents on such topics as abortion rights and school prayer.
The battle over the next Supreme Court nomination also will be different from any witnessed before - including Justice Clarence Thomas's bloody but successful confirmation fight in 1991 and Robert Bork's bare-knuckle and unsuccessful 1987 nomination - due to technology advances. E-mails, instant messaging, cell-phone text messages, blogging and round-the-clock cable news are all new tools the groups intend to exploit.
"The public scrutiny of everything has changed exponentially over 20 years," said Ralph Neas, president of the progressive group People for the American Way.
"Most different is you now have 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week media coverage," he said, with the first day or so after a resignation and nomination being critical to framing the terms of the debate in the public's mind.
The president would have the advantage in terms of knowing his choice to fill a vacancy and being able to choose the timing. Still "we hope to get into the first news cycle," Neas said.
Both sides want to shape those pivotal first impressions. And they are likely to use similar strategies to accomplish that, feeding the extensive research they've done on likely nominees to the public after massaging it to fit their point of view.
Conservatives have said they have a war chest of at least $20 million for their Supreme Court campaign. Progressives have been more reticent about what they plan to spend.
"If the fight comes, we will do whatever it takes," said Nancy Zirkin, deputy director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a longtime advocate for civil rights.
A preview of the tactics likely to be used was on display during the recent fight over judicial filibusters in the Senate.
Conservatives have a list of "battleground states" where they believe the fight for the Supreme Court nominee will be won. The Judicial Confirmation Network has paid staff and networks of activists in seven states, including Nebraska and Florida, both represented by Democratic senators up for re-election in 2006, said Gary Marx, the group's executive director and a former Bush campaign organizer.
Marx plans to send out e-mail alerts to activists immediately upon any retirement announcement. "Be next to the phone. Don't go on any family vacations in the next few weeks ... We need you ready for a focused effort," the first alerts are likely to say, he said.
Once a nominee would be named, local activists will get busy trying to influence local media coverage, talk radio and Web blogs with favorable impressions of the nominee.
The liberals have a similar strategy. NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion-rights group, has signed up 30,000 people in all 50 states to be "rapid responders." Those activists have committed to reaching out to the group's 800,000 members and beyond, to get the message out and to exert pressure on senators, especially Republicans such as Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee.
"The minute a Supreme Court justice were to step down, folks would be notifying their senators around what we expect from a nominee in terms of upholding Roe," said Nancy Keenan, president of the group, referring to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that held that women had a constitutional right to an abortion.
To help shape the progressive message, People for the American Way will turn to its 2,500-square-feet "war room" at its Washington, D.C., headquarters, similar to operations used by presidential campaigns.
With its 40 computer workstations and 75 phones, the war room will permit the group to make tens of thousands of calls to rally activists and others, Neas said. Alerts will also be sent to activists via cell-phone text messages, allowing People for the American Way to coordinate its message nationally.
In addition, the group has teamed up with veterans of Democratic presidential campaigns and the Clinton administration. Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary who advised Sen. John Kerry's presidential bid, and Carter Eskew, who has also worked on presidential campaigns, are part of the team as well as campaign, polling and public-relations experts and former Senate Judiciary Committee staff members.
"I'm not sure anyone has ever put together the equivalent of a presidential campaign team before" for a Supreme Court nomination, Neas said.
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