It Is Going To Be Hard for the GOP to Oppose Sotomayor

In several of the interviews I did today on the historic Sotomayor nomination, I got asked what it will it will do to the GOP if they oppose the first Hispanic Supreme Court pick.  Before giving my answer look at what Adam Nagourney just published in the online edition of the NYTimes:

But some Republicans warned that the image of Republicans throwing a roadblock before an historic nomination could prove politically devastating. Republicans saw a dip in Hispanic support in 2008, after eight years in which former President George W. Bush and his political aides had made a concerted effort to increase the Republican appeal to Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing group of voters.

“If Republicans make a big deal of opposing Sotomayor, we will be hurling ourselves off a cliff,” said Mark McKinnon, a senior adviser to Mr. Bush and a long-time advocate of expanding the party’s appeal. “Death will not be assured. But major injury will be.”

Matthew Dowd, another one-time adviser to Mr. Bush, said that in 2000, he calculated that Republicans needed to win 35 percent of Hispanics to beat Democrats. He said that given the steady increase in the number of Hispanic voters, he now believed Republicans needed to win a minimum of 40 percent to be competitive with Democrats.

As a result, he said, barring any revelation about Ms. Sotomayor’s background, Republicans could doom themselves to long-term minority status if they are perceived as preventing Ms. Sotomayor from becoming a judge. He argued that the party could not even be seen as threatening a filibuster.

“Because you’ll have a bunch of white males who lead the Judiciary Committee leading the charge taking on an Hispanic women and everybody from this day forward is going to know she’s totally qualified,” he said. “It’s a bad visual. It’s bad symbolism for the Republicans.”

“Republicans have to tread very lightly,” he said. “They can’t look they are going after her in any kind of personal or mean way. There’s no way they can even threaten a filibuster; I think a threat of that sort would be a problem, even if they didn’t do it.”

Pretty definitive statements from two smart guys.  And I basically agree.  After years of demonizing Hispanics as a matter of national policy, it will be very hard for today's GOP to oppose without mounting a very compelling case against her.  The cost to their party for this strategic demonization has been extraordinary.  If this nomination is not handled delicately, and respectfully, it could get much much worse.