USA Today reports that 51% of Americans polled consider the nomination of John Roberts excellent or good (tip to RealClearPolitics):
An early sampling of public opinion found support for Roberts, but also a desire for more information about his views. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll of 625 adults Wednesday found:
•51% called the choice excellent or good; 34% called it fair or poor; the rest had no opinion.
•76% said they needed more information before they could decide whether his views were “mainstream.”
•74% felt it would be appropriate to ask Roberts about abortion at the hearings. The poll has an error margin of +/— 4 percentage points.
If MoveOn, the Alliance for Justice, or the People For the American Way decide to run TV ads opposing Roberts, I would expect this to change. Progress for America already has a 30-second pro-Roberts commercial ready to run for a week.
My reading of the climate right now is that without a significant change, the Democratic senators believe that Roberts will be confirmed. While many do not want to confirm a nominee who is likely to be more conservative than Justice O’Connor, many of those most vocal in oppposing Circuit Court of Appeals nominees said that they would confirm judges if they were in the conservative mainstream. Because Roberts is in the conservative mainstream, Democratic senators would find it hard to vote against Roberts in good conscience, especially most of the members of the Gang of 14.
So one question is whether Democratic senators will support Roberts in order to garner good will to fight a future nominee tooth and nail. My guess is that it depends on whether there is a big TV ad campaign against Roberts. If there is, then there may well be enough cover to make the campaign against Roberts a nasty one in the Judiciary Committee. If there is no big TV ad campaign, then I think it will go relatively smoothly for Roberts–a lot of grumping and showboating, but few real fireworks. But a major negative TV ad campaign is a real possibility, and it could change the dynamics considerably.
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