Of course, if Lieberman and Chafee lose, there may be some rethinking.  

The notion that one can lose strategically, make a stand and lose a battle but maybe ultimately win the war, seems foreign to these folks.

And if the Dems control the Senate the thinking will also change.  No one is going to be confirmed (even if there were an opening, which at this point would have to be due to serious illness or death) until next year, after the new Senate, selected in the fall elections, is seated.  I think by then the landscape may be seriously different.  

But I agree with your main thesis that these groups threw away the only thing of value they had, namely their endorsement, basically for nothing.  It was stupid and short-sighted, even if you buy into the idea that single issue groups have to act in a sort of bipartisan way and should focus on their single issue, to endorse without requiring a vote against cloture.

...is being called not-conservative by other righties because he has dared criticize Bush on torture and a few other things.

is the group to watch. They broke the camel's back on Alito by preventing a filibuster from gelling, i think:

Republicans

   * John S. McCain III, Arizona
    * Lindsey O. Graham, South Carolina
    * John Warner, Virginia
    * Olympia Snowe, Maine
    * Susan M. Collins, Maine
    * R. Michael DeWine, Ohio
    * Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island

Democrats

   * Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut
    * Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia
    * E. Benjamin Nelson, Nebraska
    * Mary Landrieu, Louisiana
    * Daniel Inouye, Hawaii
    * Mark Pryor, Arkansas
    * Ken Salazar, Colorado

I'm heartened to see that this issue is starting now.  I hope it keeps up, and that the netroots weild their newfound respect and power consistently in the leadup to the next showdown, cause then maybe people will pay attention.

The Senate and the Presidency are, obviously, way secondary to control of the court.  Although controlling one or both of those two would help head off the loss of the third.

Durbin said, before the for-the-cameras Switzerbuster, that he had about 38, maybe 39 votes for a filibuster, but that he needed 41 and didn't have them.  I conjecture that if he had even 40, he might could have wrapped up the 41st, but he only had 38-39.

After November we will not be in that position again.  If we pick up 3-5 seats -- and note that for these purposes, replacing Lieberman with Lamont is a pickup -- then we'll have our 41 votes.  Which means that instead of picking an Alito and leaving the Dems two votes shy of a unified caucus, Bush would have to pick an Anthony Kennedy to leave the caucus split.

The DC boys and girls are pretty clear, I think, that this midterm will draw the lines for the next SCOTUS justice.  The more seats we pick up, the stronger we are for a filibuster fight, and the more moderate a justice Bush has to pick.  47 Dems means Alito can't get through.  49 Dems means Kennedy-clone can't get through.  51 Dems means O'Connor-clone would have trouble.

However, this means that the next filibuster fight will not look quite like the last one.  And how it will look depends very much on how many seats we pick up.

And again, knocking off Lieberman counts as a pickup, because he almost certainly was not one of Durbin's 38-39.

The working premise here is that filibusters on judicial nominations are a legitimate tool. Well color me skeptical. Unless someone can demonstrate a strategy that will guarantee 60 Democratic Senators come 2008 what Matt is suggesting as a routine tactic will mean future Democratic Presidents will have even less success getting judges seated, and Republicans will have a perfect out. "Dems started it".

Look filibustering Bork would have been legitimate. Read even his popular work and you see a guy who adjusts his views of executive authority depending on whether a Republican or a Democrat is in the Oval Office. He was and is a partisan hack hiding behind a black robe. Alito is a very conservative judge. There is a difference.

Judges deserve an up or down vote. That was true in the Clinton Administration (where candidates were routinely denied that) and it is true today. Don't want judges like Alito? Well then find a way to keep Republicans from stealing elections.

Judicial filibusters are a very short-sighted tactic. Now if you are convinced Democrats are going to be the Permanent Minority then filibuster away. If you believe as I do that we can take this country back don't legitimize this weapon and simply hand it over to Republicans. Because you will simply have abandoned all chance of ever rebalancing the Supreme Court ever. Republicans will see to that.

Feel free to punish Senators for voting for Alito. Punishing Senators for voting for cloture on Alito is fundamentally anti-democratic with both a big and small 'd'.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Whenever one criticizes a NeoDem, Zellocrat, or other form of turncoat DC Democrat, the frequent comeback is to cite their approval rating by NARAL, AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, or some other  Washington lobbying group that is considered "progressive".

But as this post and previous ones on this blog have pointed out, such endorsements don't -- or at least shouldn't -- carry much if any weight in determining whether a politician is really on the side of the people or the powerful since such organizations have lately shown a disposition to being being on the side of power themselves.

Remember them?

Evidently there had been zero pre-planning and coordination between the Dem senators on the committee, who were quite happy to grandstand for their spot on the local TV news as Mr Big Shot without laying a glove on Judge Alito.

Judge Who?

These are the progressive's chocolate soldiers: under klieg lights and in front of cameras, they melt into a smug, self-satisfied goo.

No wonder there's no fight in NARAL: if they did come out slugging, what would ever make them think that Dem MCs would back them up?

Well without endorsing the strategy- my thinking is that dems want the state battle to energize them and then pass a federal law.

Matt -

(disclosure: i work for PP, but don't know anything about the top-level / endorsement strategies and certainly only speak for myself - not the org).

I appreciate that you point out that we have to maintain a more complicated relationship with legislators as a result of the vast majority of our work is actual clinical service - the public policy work is actually fairly new here...

This really is sort of sad.  The bottom line is that most Washington, DC based interest groups prize thier relationships with incumbents above all else, including winning.  They are also extremely risk averse. This noes not mean that people who work for these groups are bad, stupid, etc.  It does mean that a culture has built up, a cozy culture, of protecting incumbents first.  

If we were in the majority this might make sense, at least in the short/mid-term.  One does not need to be a smart Washington based interest group leader to realize that we are in the minority and that we need to do something different.  In fact, does anyone in the interest groups understand that we are NOT running Washington, DC?  Hello, out there!

The subtext to this is that the political pros are betting on Lieberman over Lamont.  The same people bet on Filson over McNerney, Duckworth over Cegalis, Morrison over Tester, etc. Thier record is mixed.  There will be a lot of nail-biting in Washington, DC before the Connecticut primary.

If we were in the majority this might make sense, at least in the short/mid-term.

There's a school of thought among some Democrats that being in the minority excuses selling out. It's the "winning is everything" dogma. The trouble is, selling out demoralizes ordinary Democrats of principle and makes the party look rudderless to independents, and thereby perpetuates defeat.

Let's try thinking more than one move ahead, folks. The likely reaction to this misguided campaign, should it have any effect at all, is that single-interest groups will withdraw from endorsements altogether. And that result is a net loss for the Democratic Party.