The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

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Alito is performing so well in private meetings, and his preparations for the Judiciary Committee hearings are expected to go smoothly, thus ensuring an easier process of getting him to both a vote in the committee and the full Senate.

"The longer the American public sees Judge Alito and hears about his record and his performance up here, the harder it will be for Democrats to oppose him," says a Republican Judiciary Committee staffer.

And that puts the Democratic leadership in a very tight bind. According to the staffers working with the Democratic leadership, their strategy was that if the process was pushed back to late November and December, Democrats were prepared to filibuster, banking that other events would converge to help them.

"Iraq, the economy, oil prices and other domestic issues might just sour the American public enough that they wouldn't mind seeing Democrats standing up the President's most visible policy decision in the past few months," says a leadership staffer. "But now, that's been taken away from us. Alito is doing great, we got our timeline, and now we're not feeling so secure about where we might be a few months from now."

p> IN THE WINGS br> There is little support for current Treasury Secretary John Snow to be pushed out of office among Treasury and White House economic policy staff. But if Snow does decide to leave, look for current Deputy Treasury Secretary Bob Kimmett to top the list of possible replacements. /p>

topics:
Constitution, Supreme Court, Iraq, NATO, Oil