The estimable Hugh Hewitt asserts that it is a matter of simple fact that there will be a “Miers effect” that will take down vulnerable Republican senators in 2006 should she be defeated or her name withdrawn because Evangelicals and others will stay home:

“The effect will happen. It is not a response to say it shouldn’t occur, or that these Evangelicals are wrong or that they should know better. It will happen, and it will harm the GOP’s position going into 2006. A similar slicing off of key support will come from among the Second Amendment supporters, who see in the gun-owning, Second Amendment defending Harriet Miers the strongest pro-Second Amendment nominee is forty years.”

This is quite an assertion. All we know about Miers, and all any Evangelical voter knows about Miers, is that she belongs to an Evangelical church. I have no doubt she is a woman of faith. But it’s not like Bush appointed Rick Warren, whose book has sold 20 million copies, or James Dobson, who has an audience in the millions. Miers hasn’t been out there on the front lines, fighting for causes dear to Evangelicals.

The presumption, therefore, that the defeat or withdrawal of her nomination will cause millions upon millions of Evangelicals to stay home more than a year from now in a snit over the loss of their “identity politics” candidate — as opposed to participating in the political process, as good citizens of this country do — strikes me as tantamount to saying that a large number of Evangelical voters are looking for ways to cut off their noses to spite their face.

After all, whom will they be punishing? Bush? National Review? Charles Krauthammer? Rush Limbaugh? No, by acting in ways that may ensure a Democratic majority in the Senate, they will be punishing themselves, and they are sophisticated enough to understand that.

As for the Second Amendment, I don’t know, Hugh — my mailbox hasn’t exactly been filling up with demands from the NRA that she be confirmed. Nor has her support for gun rights, as uncovered by Dave Kopel, become a major issue under discussion.

In the end, then, Hugh is saying there will be terrible consequences for Republicans if Miers doesn’t go through because, well, there just will be, that’s all, and everybody better be aware of it, and look out. He might be right. There’s just no evidence whatever that he is. Indeed, there’s an equal amount of evidence that the Miers nomination is offending the GOP base (which doesn’t solely comprise Evangelicals and gun owners, by the way).