Some factoids about the Senate confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor, who was promoted to the U.S. Supreme Court this afternoon by a vote of 68 to 31:

1. When compared to all the confirmation votes since World War II, Sotomayor is the seventh most contentious nominee. The six who have received more than 31 No votes are Robert Bork (58), Clement Haynsworth (55), G. Harrold Carswell (51), Clarence Thomas (48), Samuel Alito (42), and William Rehnquist (33, when he was already on the bench but tapped for the chief justice job). And since those six were all nominated by Republican presidents, Sotomayor now ranks as the most contentious Democratic nominee of the postwar era.

2. How many Republicans had to support Sotomayor in order for us to view her confirmation as "bipartisan?" Nine of the 40 Republican senators - 22 percent of the minority - crossed over to vote Yes. Given the temper of the times, that seems like a sizeable group of defectors, but this can be spun the other way. Three Republicans with big Hispanic constituencies (John McCain, John Cornyn, Kay Bailey Hutchinson) nevertheless voted No. Two Republicans who in the past had always supported Democratic nominees (Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch) this time voted No. And four of the nine Republican Yes votes were cast by lame-duckers (Mel Martinez, Judd Gregg, George Voinovich, Kit Bond) who don't have to worry about ticking off the right-wing base back home because they're not running for re-election anyway.

3. Two of those imminent Republican retirees, Voinovich and Bond, skewered President Obama quite effectively in their Senate floor speeches. They pointed out that Obama, as a senator, had opposed both Alito and John Roberts on ideological grounds - whereas they were voting to confirm Sotomayor on the basis of her professional qualifications, regardless of how they felt about her ideology. As Bond put it yesterday, "I could easily say, as Senator Obama said, that I disagree with a nominee's judicial approach. and that allows me to oppose the nominee of a different party. Luckily for President Obama, I do not agree with Senator Obama."

»  More Verdict on the judge

 Peter Hart, the respected Democratic pollster, is now circulating the results of his latest focus group, this time featuring a dozen independent voters who live in suburban Maryland. His goal, as always, was to ask nuanced questions and elicit nuanced replies, in order to dig beneath the polling numbers and give us an idea of what people are really thinking. As Hart put it last fall, during a late October session in Ohio, "the purpose is not to count noses, but to hear what is going on in their heads."

That Ohio session was memorable, as I recall; even though Barack Obama was clearly headed for victory, in Ohio and nationwide, Hart sought to question that conventional wisdom by sounding a note of skepticism. After meeting a dozen undecided voters from a bellwether working-class county, he wrote a report contending that a lot of people were not necessarily sold on Obama, that at the eleventh hour Obama was still viewed by some swing voters as either too new or too slick. In other words, Hart is no reflexive partisan; he goes with the information flow.

And by going with the flow in his new report on suburban Maryland independents, he is again defying conventional wisdom. He says that these independents, who have "few ties to either party," still view Obama favorably even though they are somewhat restive about his work.   

The latest conventional wisdom, sparked by all the latest polls, is that the electorate's romance with Obama is over, that he has plunged to earth thanks to public disenchantment with his health care reform initiative and his general handling of the recessionary economy. Hart doesn't dispute the poll numbers, because he can't.

Hart conducts the NBC-Wall Street Journal survey, in partnership with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, and the latest findings, released last week, clearly show presidential erosion. Back in April, Hart and McInturff reported that 61 percent of Americans approved of Obama's job performance, with only 30 percent saying otherwise; in the latest report, 53 percent approve and 40 percent do not. Back in February, 54 percent said they were "extremely confident" or "quite confident" that Obama had "the right set of goals or policies." Today, 46 percent feel that way. And today, on a separate question, only 35 percent see his policies as taking the country in the right direction. All told, as Hart acknowledged in his new report, "today's political environment is tougher for the president."

»  More Obama behind the poll numbers

For all you political junkies smacking your lips at the prospect of a good fight, the impending Pennsylvania clash between Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak figures to be a hot fudge sundae with cherry on top.

This contest for the 2010 Pennsylvania Democratic senatorial nomination may prove to be unhealthy for the Democratic party, but, that aside, the nine-month bumper-car collision that officially began this morning is bound to be highly entertaining:

Snarlin' Arlen versus the Three-Star Admiral.
The Insider versus the Outsider.
The Party Establishment's Choice versus The Upstart Who Won't Go Away.
The Guy Who Joined the Democrats in '09 versus The Guy Who Joined the Democrats in '06.

Sestak made his challenge official this morning. Finally. For months he had teased and flirted, claiming that he first had to consult with his wife, his father, his daughter, his pet hamster, the neighbor's dog...but now he has honed his pitch. He said that in 2008, "this nation voted for change and accountability," and that he expects Pennsylvania's Democratic voters to do the same in the Senate primary next spring. Translation: Even though Barack Obama has already endorsed Specter the turncoat, Sestak considers himself to be the more authentic Democrat and hence the true heir to the Obama message of change. In short, he will try to frame the primary as a party loyalty test.

»  More Loyalty test

The soldiers of ignorance are on the march again. For those of us who dwell in the reality-based community, there are only two ways to respond:

Option A is to simply ignore the marchers, by convincing ourselves that nobody would ever believe the lies that they are spreading.

Option B is to subscribe to the 19th-century English proverb (often mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain) that goes something like this: "A lie will go 'round the world while truth is pulling its boots on." In other words, all kinds of credulous people will swallow all kinds of lies. Therefore, it becomes imperative that the truth-tellers insist on equal time.

So in the spirit of Option B, let's assess one of the more toxic lies currently being circulated on conservative talk radio, on conservative blogs, and in right-wing viral emails. The topic, naturally, is health care, and the aim is to freak out America's senior citizens - or, at the very least, prey on those who are most gullible - in the hope that systemic reform can be scuttled and the status quo preserved.

»  More Flash! Democrats want to kill your granny!

During the era of GOP dominance, Democrats dreamed of forging a new majority and taking back the U.S. House of Representatives. They finally turned the dream into reality in the 2006 election, and broadened their majority in 2008. But as the old saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for."

Today they have a House majority at odds with itself. Case in point, health care reform. This signature issue is exposing fundamental rifts in the ranks. Conservative Democratic "blue dogs" are worried that the proposed overhail could be too expensive and government-intrusive, thereby ticking off conservative and moderate voters in swing House districts; moreover, the blue dogs' concerns are being echoed by the two dozen Democratic House freshmen who captured seats last November in districts that normally elect Republicans.

Then there are the House liberals, most of whom hail from safe liberal seats and  echo the sentiments of the party's liberal base. These folks are generally thought to be President Obama's most faithful followers. They have been pushing for sweeping health care reform - seeking a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers - for a very long time.

Well, we heard from the House liberals yesterday, big time. And they are seriously ticked off.

»  More "A great kaleidoscope"

Republican leaders have finally rebuked the paranoid loons in their midst. Kinda, sorta, and ever so timorously.

For lo these many months, the so-called "birthers" have been recycling the lie about how Barack Obama is supposedly an illegitimate president because he supposedly was not born on American soil in Hawaii. I won't bother explaining the birther "side" of this argument, because there is no argument; if you agree with the "birthers," take your tinfoil hat and leave now.

Suffice it to say that Hawaii officials, starting with the Republican governor, have repeatedly vouched for Obama; that Hawaii's health director, after having reviewed "the original vital records maintained on file," publicly declared earlier this week that Obama was born in Honolulu - thereby repeating what she said publicly nine months ago. John McCain's campaign looked into this faux issue and found nothing. Obama's opponent in the '04 Senate campaign looked as well and found nothing; as GOP operative Bill Pascoe wrote two days ago, "I can attest to the fact that nowhere in our opposition research (in 2004) did we find any reason to believe that the man was not a natural born citizen of the United States."

So what's most noteworthy about this irrelevant contretemps is the passive posture of the Republican leaders, who have done virtually squat to distance the party from the fruitcakes on the right-wing fringe. Which is tantamount to indulging them.

»  More Indulging the fruitcakes

Regarding a few events that transpired in my absence:

The arrest of black Harvard academician Henry Louis Gates Jr. blew up into a national story, thanks largely to President Obama's ill-considered decision to wax loquacious on the matter. Not that you asked, but here's my take: Gates was wrong to mouth off to the cop. Not morally wrong, just tactically wrong. Given his admirable lifelong sensitivity to racial injustice, Gates arguably held the moral high ground when faced with the embarrassment of producing an ID in his own home. But, as Colin Powell rightly noted on CNN yesterday, it's generally not wise to heap verbal abuse on a cop. A cop has a gun and a badge - and, quite often, a very flexible notion of what constitutes "disorderly conduct." As Gates quickly learned, you can get arrested on that charge if you're pushing 60, walking with a cane, and yelling at a cop on your own property, without ever presenting a physical threat. That's indeed what can happen when you diss a cop and challenge his authority. Gates would have been better off cooperating in the moment...and reserving the right to sue later.

-------

Watch how grassroots liberals react in the days ahead to the health care reform process on Capitol Hill. Democratic negotiators, in their quest for some kind of bipartisan measure, seem increasingly willing to jettison some of the provisions that liberals deem crucial to the cause of reform - namely, any government-run "public option" health plan, and any language that would require employers to provide health care. If a watered-down reform package ultimately passes and Obama signs it, will liberal voters register their ire by staying home on congressional election day 2010? It's worth recalling that liberal base apathy helped sink Bill Clinton and the Democrats in the '94 congressional elections, following the Clinton health care debacle.

»  More Gates, the Nixon niche, and more

Still California dreaming. But back here tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's a Robert Frost poem about the Pacific Ocean, full of late-1930s portents. (Hat tip to my friend Peter Landry.) If you're not into poetry, no need to tarry.

The shattered water made a misty din. 
Great waves looked over others coming in, 
And thought of doing something to the shore 
That water never did to land before. 
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, 
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. 
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if 
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff, 
The cliff in being backed by continent; 
It looked as if a night of dark intent 
Was coming, and not only a night, an age. 
Someone had better be prepared for rage. 
There would be more than ocean-water broken 
Before God's last 'Put out the Light' was spoken.

Greetings from vacation. This is the latest Sunday print column, with minor tweakings and additions:

As a political junkie who got hooked in the late ‘60s, I never thought I’d see the day when people would resurrect Lyndon B. Johnson and cite him as a role model.

Back in the day, few thought well of LBJ. He got waste deep in the big muddy, and his sonorous TV demeanor made Ed Sullivan look like Elvis Presley. By the end of his tenure, he was popular only on military bases. His idea of spontaneity was to lift his shirt and show people his surgical scar. On the other hand, when it came time to get Medicare passed back in ‘65, LBJ had a great inside game. He sweet-talked some of the congressmen, and smacked the rest of them upside the head -  the carrot, the stick, whatever it took.

That was LBJ at his best. Which is why some esteemed commentators are urging Barack Obama to channel the big fella in the health care debate.

The advice is understandable. Health care reform is not just an issue; it’s a political metaphor that may well determine whether Obama succeeds or fails as president.

His quest to fix the dysfunctional system is grinding through five congressional committees, and it’s still tough to tell who’s in charge. Obama has set broad goals (promote choice, cover the uninsured, control costs),  but he has set no specifics on how to achieve those goals.  Instead, he said the other night that he is waiting “to see what emerges from these committees” few of which seem to agree on anything. Sometimes it seems as if we’re all hostage to the whims of a Montana senator named Max Baucus, whose entire state has half a million fewer people than the city of Philadelphia.

Hence, the call for Obama to seize his “Johnson moment.” Doris Kearns Goodwin, the LBJ
scholar, wants Obama “to take charge, to draw lines, to pressure, to threaten, to cajole,” to basically herd the cats on the Hill. Peter Fenn, a Democratic strategist, has declared, “It’s time for a little LBJ,” with “some serious arm-twisting for good measure.” Newsweek's Eleanor Clift writes that "it's time for Obama to get in touch with his inner LBJ." Dean Baker, who runs a liberal think tank, urges Obama to “get the list of every hardball nasty political ploy” ever used by LBJ.

These people are dreaming.

Granted, one of Obama's top aides reportedly keeps an LBJ quote on her desk (the quote: "There is but one way for a president to deal with the Congress, and that is continually, incessantly, and without interruption.") But Obama and Johnson have few traits in common.

Johnson was a creature of Capitol Hill who had logged 23 years as a lawmaker, including a productive stint as Senate Majority leader. He knew his colleagues well, he knew when to flatter or frighten. Many owed him favors; as president, he often called in his markers. Most importantly, Democratic lawmakers feared him. The current crop of Democrats do not fear Obama. He worked among them in the Senate for only four years and never gained any leverage, LBJ-style.

Lacking LBJ’s inside moves, Obama has gone with his outside game. His grassroots political arm, Organizing for America, has run TV ads targeting red-state Democratic senators – such as Kent Conrad of North Dakota, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana – urging them to support sweeping health care reform. These Democrats aren’t exactly quaking in their boots. Conrad says, “It’s fine with me.” Landrieu says, “It really doesn’t matter to me literally one way or the other.”

Maybe LBJ could have knocked their heads together, and ordered them not to worry about deepening the deficit. But I wonder about that. In Obama’s defense, LBJ never had to deal with the kind of fiscal headaches that persist today. When Johnson was twisting arms for his Great Society agenda, the economy was booming, General Motors and other corporate behemoths were alive and well, and banks were banks. His budget issues weren’t nearly as dire as those currently afflicting Obama. 

Johnson also had far stronger prevailing winds at his back; he had won a landslide election in the aftermath of the JFK assassination, and he enjoyed two-thirds majorities in both congressional chambers. And while playing his inside game – most commonly known as “the Johnson treatment,” he had a weapon that Obama dare not employ.

Pork.

That’s a dirty word today; so is its synonym, the “earmark.” But back in LBJ’s heyday, that was a staple of doing business. That’s how he was able to cajole and threaten the lawmakers. When someone was dragging his feet on the Medicare bill, Johnson would promise to put a pork project in the congressman’s district; if someone crossed LBJ, he’d punish the person by canceling some pork.

The historian Robert Dallek tells a great story about the time that Democratic Sen. Frank Church voted against one of Johnson’s bills. The Idaho senator told the president that he had been swayed by Walter Lippmann, an influential columnist who had attacked the bill in print. LBJ’s reply: “Frank, next time you want a dam in Idaho, you call Walter Lippmann and let him put it through.”

People seem to want Obama to act like LBJ, but Obama would be fried in the press if he tried anything like that. Pork is a symptom of the old Washington that Obama has vowed to change – which is fine, but let’s not forget that the tribal rituals of old Washington helped make Johnson the manipulative wheeler dealer that he was.

With respect to the health care reform, perhaps the current congressional sausage-making would be more coherent, and perhaps the public would be more reassured, if Obama was drawing lines in the sand. Perhaps he’s being too passive and relying too much on his outside game. But even LBJ at his best would have a tough time corralling the grassroots liberals, the doctors, the hospitals, the insurers, the lobbyists, the Blue Dogs, the bloggers, the Tweeters, the Republicans who seem more fixated on killing Obama politically than solving the health care mess...all the disputatious paraphernalia of contemporary politics.

The bottom line, often overlooked, is that health care reform is now farther in the pipeline than ever before. Obama deserves some credit for that, even though he lacks LBJ’s inside game. And he knows that his window of opportunity won’t stay open for long, that the “aura and the halo” will inevitably “disappear.”

That was Lyndon Johnson, talking about himself in 1965. For any president, some of the basic political rhythms stay the same.

»  More "The aura and the halo"