The revolt in the Senate over the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court is in fact an enormous historical moment. It will be remembered in history as the first time the anti-neocons ever stood up for themselves.

It is crucial to understand that the actual outcome, that is, the issue of whether or not the filibuster bears significant consequences regarding the Alito confirmation, or anything else for that matter, is really not nearly as important as are the new political relationships that it will establish. We must not assume that the neocons are unmindful of the incredible significance of this event. If anyone thinks that the neocons are not out there, spending perhaps millions of dollars on things like focus groups pertaining to this, they will be in for a rude awakening.

Many people at MyDD have raised questions about why this operation could not have been more organized and better planned. Why did it have to begin with John Kerry returning from Switzerland, of all places, in great haste? John Aravosis has even voiced opposition to the filibuster, claiming that it really should have been preceded by a massive public relations effort. I will now try to demonstrate that these questions have answers.

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I'm going to let Georgia10's words speak for why we must fight on Alito:

You dropped the ball, and it would have been easy for us to heed the Republican call and give up. But when you dropped the ball, Senators, we picked it up. The second you approached us for help, we pounced into action.  We leaped to action not because we were sure of victory. We are the reality-based community, after all. We know the numbers are against us. We know the chances of a successful filibuster are near zero.  But we also know that if you don't stand up for your beliefs when so much is at stake, rhetoric of opposition rings painfully hollow.

Here are the phone numbers, again, on the flip, from dkos diarist judybrowni:

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I'm going to get a lot of flack for this post, but here goes.

A filibuster is an extreme action that requires robust public support.  We do not have this support.  It's that simple.  I'm all for keeping Alito off the court, and a filibuster until after the SOTU is a good idea.  But it's very important for the netroots to understand what's happening here.  This last-minute campaign to get Senators to switch their votes, after it became crystal clear that we do not have the votes to filibuster, is a classic example of 'get points for trying' politics.  It's a way for Senators to get credit from the left-wing of the party without having to actually do anything or stop anything.  The reality is that this fight was lost two months ago, when Senators decided that going on Christmas break was more important than preparing to defend the constitution, and PFAW and Alliance for Justice decided that releasing 150 page documents was a good way to build public pressure against Alito's confirmation.

By all means, call your Senators.  Don't stop.  Don't let up.  But don't forgive the party leadership and our groups for this travesty.  People for the American Way has been preparing for this fight for years.  And then they didn't show up.  The same is true with NARAL, and the Alliance for Justice.  I honestly don't know why they are funded anymore - that's how bad this failure has been.  And Senators - including DiFi, HRC, Kerry, and Obama - have revealed themselves to be craven fair weather fans who expect others to do the work of standing up for Democratic values for them.  Think about it for a moment.  John Kerry called for a filibuster from Switzerland two hours after it became public that there were not enough votes for a filibuster.  That is atrocious.  Tinman points out on Breaking Blue the essential point:

If he was serious about it he would have stayed in Washington, held press conferences, lobbied his colleagues and tried to generate as much attention as possible. Since it was just a PR stunt, it wasn't necessary for Kerry to change his travel plans.

Democratic insiders have failed at the art of politics.  It's that simple.  Doing politics is not about saying the right thing at the wrong time, it's about lining up a coalition to push the levers of social change.  This they just don't do.  For instance, at no point has any insider pol or group leader laid out a strategy for victory.  No one defined victory.  No one laid out a path to get there.  And no one communicated with various groups, including the netroots, on helping us be part of a coalition to win.  The communications operation here is just atrocious.  The insider groups have young communications staffers dealing with bloggers who collectively talk to 1 million people a day.  These are talented people, but they aren't setting strategy and they don't have the juice to help us with this fight.  

And don't delude yourself, this is intentional.  The attitude that the insiders have towards us is that we are a stupid ATM set up to feed their ineffectiveness.  Witness uberinsider telling us the truth about where we fit in:

"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."

They are telling us, broadcasting to us, that they think we're stupid.  They think that having no campaign on Alito can easily be fixed by posting a diary on Daily Kos urging us to 'fight' a month after the fight has already been lost.  It's craven, it's crass, it's ridiculous.

Even so, with no direction and no communication, we've moved the vote count on the filibuster to 37 from the high 20s.  That's amazing.  But don't forget, they let us down, big time.  And we should not forgive them for this, until Alito is off the court.  Because Alito and the brutal decisions he will hand down is a reminder of the insiders' desire for direct mail success over preserving the republic.

UPDATE: I should clarify something. Atrios laid out the success strategy to salvage something. Don't let 'em confirm him before the State of the Union.

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