It's in the bag unless some significant info comes out of the hearings.
Miers will be confirmed.
Honestly...don't you think the President counted Senatorial noses before he put her forward?
Maybe not accurately. Some of those actually face reelection.
Of course he did and he also did count the Senatorial votes if he nominates an openly know conservative and the results were that this nominee would have been defeated no matter how much pressure the President would put on the 7 to 10 RINOS in the Senate who would not vote to end the judicial filibuster.
I heard that Senators voting against a nominee chosen by a President from their own party have only done so twice, one was an Eisenhower appointee, Harlan II, and I forget the other one. As I recall, and I may not be clear on this, there were only a couple Senators that did this each time. Every other time all the Senators from the President's party voted in favor of confirmation.
It is a very, very rare occurrence, historically speaking.
If I'm wrong about this I'd appreciate being corrected.
Normally one would think so, but given their admitted suprise over the Miers uproar, who knows what they were doing on the weekend of October 3rd.
There's a difference between counting "sure" noses, and counting the noses of those you think you can arm-twist into supporting a nominee.
I think Bush counted the "sure and easy" noses and decided on Miers. I personally believe that Bush could have arm-twisted a more proven conservative jurist onto the bench.
That said, I have wondered from the beginning if this was all a dangerous but sly strategery to force the Dems into exactly this choice: be the ones to put a Bush "crony" with no experience onto the court and hurt themselves with their base -- or on the other hand to reject her and allow Bush to come back with a strong conservative that pleased his base.
It is a gambit that if "lost" puts his friend on the court, and if "won" ends up with a stronger conservative than he could have nominated in the first place without a firestorm from the left...