ConfirmThem

By Paul Zummo Posted in Fillibuster — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Via the Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez links to this Christian Science Monitor article that questions whether the public at large is paying attention to the judicial filibuster showdown.

As the Senate heads toward an expected Tuesday vote on barring judicial filibusters, and the fight over judicial nominees grows nastier, the answer to which party is winning the battle for public opinion may be "neither."

Americans think "there's no direct relationship to their lives, and they have other things to be concerned about," says Larry Sabato, director of the center for politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "They see it as typical politicians fighting in the sandbox while Rome is burning."

The article continues, observing that though public opinion polls show a slight majority seeming to back the Democratic position, in the long-run the public could punish the Democrats for their obstructionism.

"You get close enough to Washington and you can smell the stink," says Nick Zeger, a young pharmacy technician who voted for Bush, outside a Nashville grocery store. "I'm disgusted with the Republicans in the fact that it's come to this, but I'm more disgusted with the Democrats for refusing to work with them.'' And if he had to blame anyone for the impasse? "It would be the American people - because we're the voters and we chose these clown acts to go to Washington."

Frankly I am not surprised to hear that the public is not overly concerned with this issue. To the average person, this seems like more of a procedural fight that unduly (in their eyes) takes attention away from more pressing matters. And to the degree that the public doesn't really care, I think that it should assuage the fears of those who think that Republicans will face a backlash should they go through with the nuclear/constitutional/Byrd/poppycock option. I have argued before that the Republicans didn't even experience a backlash for more public controversies, such as the 1995 government shutdown and the impeachment. If the mass public didn't repudiate the GOP over those matters, what makes people believe that the voters are going to do so now when the issue is one that they are less concerned about?