As expect, and widely predicted even before the choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court was announced, portions of the right wing have been engaging in their usual politics of personal destruction to distort Sotomayor’s record and engage in character assassination. In this case the right is actually divided. Some conservatives see attacks on Sotomayor as part of their grand strategy for 2012 of painting Obama as a leftist, and many other conservatives just fall into character assassination as a Pavolvian response to any action from a Democrat.
In contrast, some conservatives realize that it is counter to their goal of receiving greater Hispanic support to someone who is probably the first Hispanic nominee. I wonder if any on the right are also beginning to realize the degree to which their reliance on the politics of personal destruction has backfired, with even many who might not vote against them based upon their beliefs now wishing to disassociate themselves with the Republican Party and conservative movement due to their unsavory tactics.
There is far too much material and too little time to quote everything of relevance here so I will try to choose some of the best links. A case such as this is an example of both the blogosphere at its worst and best. At worst the blogs permit the right wing echo chamber to repeat the same lies and distortions, allowing good conservative sheep to quickly learn which lies to repeat. At best the blogoshpere has quickly presented far more actual analysis than has been present in the news media.
To begin, The Scotus Blog has presented a summary of her decisions in posts here, here, and here. Her decisions have often been on narrow, technical grounds and only provide limited insight into her views on the types of issues considered by the Supreme Court (despite attempts by the right to mischaracterize her as having a far left record ). There are some favorable signs with respect to her views on First Amendment rights.
There are many blog posts responding to the character assassination from the right, such as from Adam Server
The GOP utterly screwed itself when the nativists derailed the Rove/McCain plan to deal with illegal immigration in a sane and humane manner.
If Rove had managed to pull it off, there would be a huge chunk of Republican Hispanic voters at this point, considering the level of socially-conservative cultural mores in Latino culture.
Believe it or not, a wise man at my job at McDonalds said the biggest downfall for the Republicans will be their position on Gay Marriage & Abortion. I have to totally agree. The Republican Party reveals itself as a party of haters & people who don’t like & accept people that are different than them. All of these attacks on Sotomayor are absurd & hateful. The biggest argument against Obama choosing her is that he chose her because of her race & ethnicity. I can’t tell you how stupid that statement is; There has been 111 Supreme Court Justices 107 them were white males, 44 Presidents 43 of them were white males. Where is the sexism & racial cries in that. Nobody thinks odd of that!!! Republicans are gonna have to understand that America is a country of many different colors & many different types of people, white males aren’t the only ones that know how to run this country!!!
Republicans have failed in so many areas that it is hard to say what the biggest downfall will be. Besides gay marriage and abortion, they are being seriously harmed by a foreign policy which has undermined our national security (after being seen for years, rightly or wrongly, as the party which promotes a sane foreign policy) and being harmed by how badly they screwed up the economy. Their opposition to health care reform in the face of a system which is rapidly collapsing also doesn’t help them.
It could be true that gay marriage and abortion will cause their downfall. In the past gay marriage worked to their advantage as they got out conservatives to vote for anti-gay marriage amendments. Views on this issue are changing rapidly, especially with the young. While the issue only directly affects a small number of voters, to the rest of us it just looks like blatant discrimination and close minded adherence to theocratic views. They have lost the support of the generation just recently getting the vote over issues such as this, and generally, barring something to cause realignment, such voting patterns stick.
Plus, as Frtiz noted, their views on immigration have made it difficult to extend their base among older white males–and a lot of us are also fed up with the Republicans.