Advocacy Groups Targeting Vulnerable Senators on Alito Vote

Senators up for reelection will be key in the vote on Samuel A. Alito Jr. (Dennis Cook - AP)

Groups on both sides began mobilizing supporters hours after Bush announced Alito's nomination on Oct. 31. But the brewing battle has been largely obscured by the decorum of Alito's courtesy calls to senators, to whom he has offered reassuring words about his 15 years as an appeals court judge. The effort has earned praise from many senators, including some Democrats, who are impressed by Alito's intellect, judicial experience and professed respect for legal precedent.

But if the ritual visits to senators are mostly smiles, small talk and carefully calibrated promises to interpret the law, not make it, the street-level campaign is something else altogether. Both sides are framing their arguments in urgent and emotional words -- hoping to sway what polls suggest is substantial but hardly insurmountable sentiment for Alito to be confirmed. With a quarter to a third of Americans still uninformed or undecided, both sides are working hard to win converts.

"Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has a 15-year history of judicial decisions that are hostile to our rights," reads the opening line of a flier being circulated by anti-Alito activists here. It calls him a right-wing activist interested in undermining a positive role for government, sanctioning discrimination and "threatening our civil liberties."

Alito's supporters are hardly more nuanced in condemning the motives of opponents. "Their agenda is clear," intones an ad sponsored by a coalition of conservative groups. "They want to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance and are fighting to redefine traditional marriage. They support partial-birth abortion, sanction the burning of the American flag."

Rhode Island's other senator, Jack Reed (D), voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in September and is widely assumed to take the same stance toward Alito. That leaves Chafee as the real target.

He has said that he would wait for Alito's hearings, scheduled to begin Jan. 9, before deciding how to vote. The nature of his reelection challenge makes the decision on Alito tricky. The senator's Republican primary opponent, Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, is unabashedly conservative. The likely Democratic nominee -- either former state attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse or Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown -- will be more liberal than either Republican.

Chafee "does not have an easy calculation as to how to play this," said Darrell West, a Brown University political scientist. "The problem with being in the center is you end up getting attacked by all sides."

West added that the grass-roots campaign surrounding the nomination only increases the stakes. "I think advocacy campaigns make a big difference because they put the senator on guard that people are paying attention and that this is a vote that matters," he said.

During their meeting here, the fledgling activists started making plans to bring maximum pressure to bear. "I felt like we didn't have a chance with Judge Roberts," said Brooke Huffman, 26, a youth counselor who suggested the mobile phone idea. "But with Alito, he's such an extremist, there is going to be more opposition."

Social worker Lisa Reichstein, 35, said she rarely gets deeply involved in politics. But calling the Alito nomination a special case, she promised to arrange a happy hour or other social event in hopes of drawing more people for their cause.

"I'm scared. I'm very scared," she said, explaining that she worries most about protecting abortion rights and privacy generally. "Putting Alito in there will absolutely change the balance of the court. We have to stop him."