Shannen: I suspect that you are correct and Democrats will do everything they can to block a conservative Bush nominee. That includes mounting a filibuster. I just don’t expect that filibuster to be successful. Consider, first, the example of the Ashcroft nomination to be attorney general. The Left, following Florida, wanted to filibuster him. Daschle said no, and did so because he thought it was too politically risky. The Left has increased its power within the Democratic Senate caucus, so it is probably now impossible for Democrats to say no. But Daschle’s calculation still strikes me as fundamentally correct. The public does not want jobs it considers important–jobs it has heard of–going unfilled because of Senate obstruction. (And there are more Republican senators than there were in early ‘01.) To turn to the Supreme Court specifically: The polling tends to suggest that people aren’t scared of conservative judges (although of course if you ask questions that are loaded enough to yield liberal results you can get them). People will be paying some attention to a fight over the Supreme Court, and they will think it unfair to deny the nominee an up-or-down vote. It’s also worth remembering that 12 Senate Democrats come from states Bush carried by 5 points or more. Voting against a Bush nominee to the Supreme Court is not risk-free for red-state Democrats, and filibustering one certainly isn’t.