That New York Times article about the disgruntled Hill staffers is important in more ways than one. Beyond establishing that Miers could

indeed go down, the article subtly suggests tensions between Republican

staffers and their own Senators. That tension needs to be taken

seriously. When the history of the Miers nomination is written, it will

emerge that the Republican senate itself played a key role in the decision

not to go with an openly social conservative nominee.

This article from The Boston Globe, “For social conservatives, it just doesn’t add up,” is dead on. The real reason the president did this is that he believes he doesn’t have the votes to go nuclear in the senate and/or that the battle will be too politically costly, even if it succeeds. What’s more, I

believe that senate Republicans themselves share precisely the same worry.

Senate Republican’s know that nominating a strong and open social

conservative will set off a paralyzing battle, and virtually shut down the

rest of their agenda for the duration. The mammoth battle will also turn

the pressure now being aimed at the president onto the Senate’s Republican

moderates. At a minimum, that would mean exacerbating party divisions and

jeopardizing the majority’s congressional agenda going into a midterm

election. At worst, the internal squabbling would threaten the Republican

senate majority itself. Knowing this, I believe that senate Republicans

themselves begged the president for a stealth nominee.

The president believed he had found that stealth nominee in Harriet

Miers. He trusted her, because he’d known her for years. And no doubt she

shows her conservative face–which is genuinely a part of who she is–to the

president. But I doubt that Miers went into her meetings with George Bush

in 1998 and 1999 telling him in excited tones how happy she was to have

pleased her liberal feminist supporters by setting up a lecture series for

Gloria Steinem and Susan Faludi. The president was taken by surprise by

Miers long-practiced penchant for silence about her own complex political

sympathies. So the wobbly Republican moderates in the Senate, combined

with a stealth nominee who was less conservative than her own backers

believed, got us into this mess.

I oppose the Miers nomination. But I’m realistic enough to admit that the

sort of nominee I want would mean a politically dangerous Senate battle,

with real risks for the Republican majority. I think the stakes justify

the battle–and the fight would have the huge political plus of uniting and

exciting the base going into the mid-term elections. But Republican

Senators clearly have reason to fear the pressures such a battle will place

on them.

Republican office holders are always reluctant to go along with the

cultural battles craved by the base. Republican officials regularly beg

Ward Connerly not to come into their states with his petition drives

against racial preferences. And this is true, even though clear majorities

of Americans oppose preferences. The wimp out on this nomination by both

the president and the congressional Republicans is the ultimate example of

that familiar split between Republican office-holders and their base. What

the Republican officials need to understand, is that their base has been

willing to swallow that sort of wimp out for decades–all on the theory that

one day we’d get it back through this nomination.

For years, politicians of both parties have avoided difficult cultural

battles by passing the buck to the courts. Now we see the

consequences. Court nominations themselves become the focus of politics,

and when politicians try to pass the buck even on the most important

nomination, the base finally turns on them. Again, I believe that it’s the

Senate Republicans–every bit as much, or more, than the president–who need

to get the message that we demand a real battle on this court seat,

bruising and risky for Republicans as it will admittedly be.