Republicans v Sotomayor

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16 July 2009

Has the GOP finally woken up? Or are they just as lost as ever? That is the question that many are asking now that the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor have started.

Deeply aware of the fact that Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed, Republicans have launched an all out war on Sotomayor’s ethnic background, and as many have rightly observed, turned her confirmation hearing into a debate about gender, race and immigration in the U.S. This has been well-exposed by many as a deliberate ploy – an attempt to not only undermine President Obama’s candidate for the Supreme Court as far too liberal for the job but to weaken the Administration itself.

While many on the conservative side might applaud the Senate Republicans on the Committee and others for getting back to their roots and for trying to appeal to their base by ratcheting up the anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant rhetoric, others, like Pat Buchanan, that they haven’t gone far enough.

There is some evidence that their approach might be working – a recent CNN poll had voters supporting her nomination by only 47%, which is the lowest rating of recent nominees, save for Harriet Miers. But there is also a real possibility that in the end, it might not work. Pat Buchanan points out that Republicans need to bring back into the fold all the “white conservative Democrats… whose jobs have been outsourced to China and Asia, who pay the price of affirmative action when their sons and daughters are pushed aside to make room for the Sonia Sotomayors. These are the folks who want the borders secured and the illegals sent back.” But Republicans also need Hispanics and women voters too. And they need to be more than just the “party of no”.

It is hard to watch the appallingly sexist and racist nature of the debate and the inferred Republican premise that bias is something that is only expressed by those who are not male and white. Sadly, however, as long as Republicans can find nothing else to question about Sotomayor’s judicial record, it shows no sign of abating.