Brett Cavanaugh by Nancy OhanianL.A. is packed with state legislators from around the country for conferences this week, including several friends of mine who I don't get to see often. Last night I had dinner with one and, as we were leaving Cafe Gratitude, he asked me how I thought the Kavanaugh thing would end. I think was looking for me to affirm his own optimism. I wish I could have. Do we have a shot? Sure. But it's a really long shot. People are working very hard on this and voters are starting to rally against Kavanaugh. The latest polling I've seen, from YouGov, is... meh. Among registered voters, it's very close:
• Strongly approve- 27%• Somewhat approve- 10%• Somewhat disapprove- 9%• Strongly disapprove- 28%• Undecided- 25%
No significant difference-- just a battle for the hearts and minds of the people who describe themselves as not knowing enough to decide. Still, Kavanaugh is the least popular Supreme Court nominee in modern history-- including a Quinnipiac poll from last week that shows more people oppose his confirmation than support it.FiveThirtyEight points out that Kavanaugh's polling numbers look like Robert Bork's and Harriet Miers'. OK, always nice to see a little history. It's not meaningless. But can Chuck Schumer pull it off?He needs to hold shaky Trump state Democrats up for reelection (+ Doug Jones of Alabama who isn't up for reelection)-- Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, Bill Nelson and Claire McCaskill-- from committing to support confirmation to give Schumer-- and the grassroots groups in their states-- enough room and enough time to persuade 2 Republicans (yes, technically they only need one, but will just one Republican take on the whole onus alone?) to flip. I don't see that happening, unless there's a dead girl/live boy scenario in those hidden records. Big talkers Corker and Flake could do it since both are retiring, but neither has the inclination-- nor the balls, no matter how much they detest Trump.Yesterday, writing for the New Yorker Jeffrey Toobin wrote, trying too reassure the kinds of people who read the New Yorker that "At some point in the process, all four of these nominees-- Haynsworth, Carswell, Bork, and Ginsburg-- seemed like shoo-ins for confirmation, much as Kavanaugh does today. And yet they were all defeated. And the Justices who took their places were closer to the judicial and political mainstream. To be sure, the analogies to Kavanaugh’s case can be overdrawn. The most obvious difference is that Democrats controlled the Senate when Nixon and Reagan made their nominations. And Nixon and Reagan were less right-wing than Trump has been, at least when it comes to judicial nominations. Trump and his allies can be expected to fight furiously for Kavanaugh precisely because Blackmun and Kennedy turned out to be more moderate than many anticipated. Still, the current Republican margin in the Senate (owing to John McCain’s absence) is just a single vote, and Kavanaugh’s long paper trail, both as a judge and as a Republican political appointee, gives Democrats a great deal of material to exploit. Most of all, they need to remember that fighting Supreme Court nominees, even against formidable odds, can succeed-- and produce a better Court than anyone might have expected."One more thing. You know who Trump is? He's the guy who, if Kavanaugh is defeated, will absolutely find someone worse, not someone better. Meanwhile, today... on the floor of the Senate: