In the Right

But McConnell isn't the only Senate Republican leader trying to figure out how to play the nomination contest. The man with, arguably, the tougher job is Texas Republican John Cornyn.

As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Cornyn is required to be more sensitive than his colleagues to the political implications of the various alternative courses of action.

As a man who's gone 3-0 in statewide election contests in Texas, Cornyn can be presumed to know a thing or two about the importance of the Hispanic vote.

Wisely, Cornyn has taken a particularly sensitive line on Sotomayor.

When Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich branded Sotomayor a "racist" for her 2001 statement that "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," Cornyn properly rejected the attack as "terrible," and noted, "This is not the kind of tone that any of us want to set."

But that's not to say that Cornyn is set to confirm the nomination -- not by any stretch of the imagination.

Yesterday, good news arrived for conservatives seeking to firm up Senate GOP opposition to Sotomayor -- good news in the form of a new Quinnipiac University Polling Institute study, and good news in the form of Sotomayor's archived speeches.

By a 55-36 percent majority, according to the survey, Americans say affirmative action should be abolished, and by 71-19 percent they oppose Sotomayor's ruling in the New Haven firefighters case.

Independents oppose her ruling on the New Haven firefighters by 74-17 percent, and even Democrats oppose her on that ruling, by 59-27 percent.

Further, by 70-25 percent, Americans oppose giving some racial groups preference for government jobs to increase diversity; and by 74-21 percent, they oppose giving some racial groups preference for private sector jobs for the same purpose.

Clearly, the whole area of race and ethnicity and how Sotomayor believes they should impact a judge's rulings is what naval aviators -- at least, the Hollywood types who play them in the movies -- would refer to as a "target rich environment."

And that's where the second gift comes in -- yesterday, Senate offices received Sotomayor's answers to the Judiciary Committee's questionnaire, along with boxes containing 84 of Sotomayor's archived speeches.

Contrary to Obama strategists' hopes, those speeches make clear that Sotomayor's 2001 comments on Latinas reaching "better" judgments than white men were not just a one-off, out-of-context thing, but were, instead, evidence of a larger belief system.

Sotomayor, for instance, believes Republicans opposed her ascension to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998 at least partly because she was an Hispanic woman.

And the Washington Post, referring to her 2001 comments on the wisdom of Latinas, put it this way:

Obama has said that she regretted the wording in hindsight, but the speeches released yesterday suggest that while she had not used the precise words before, the sentiments behind the remark were hardly isolated.

In a 1999 speech to the Women's Bar Association of New York State, Sotomayor invoked "sister power," called for the selection of a third woman Supreme Court justice -- which she would now be -- and used phrasing similar to that in the Berkeley speech. "I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion," she said.

Further, according to the Post:

Her calls to ethnic solidarity were often coupled with critiques of America's "deeply confused" tendency to boast of its diversity while seeking to assimilate minorities.

"We are a nation that takes pride in our ethnic diversity, recognizing its importance in shaping our society and in adding richness to its existence," she told the National Puerto Rican Coalition in 1998. "Yet, we simultaneously insist that we can and must function and live in a race- and color-blind way that ignores those very differences that in other contexts we laud."

What, pray tell, is "deeply confusing" about a nation that takes pride in its ethnic diversity, yet insists that we must be race- and color-blind in the application of the law?

One of the rules of successful political communications campaigns is to choose issues that unite your own base, while splitting your opponent's.

Based on what we've seen so far, Sotomayor's stance on race and ethnicity, and how the law should be applied to them, certainly seems to offer just what the Republicans need -- an issue that unites Republicans, divides Democrats, and has the added bonus of playing well with Independents.

The conservatives who wrote to McConnell are right -- Republican Senators should filibuster the Sotomayor nomination, so as to ensure, at the very least, a serious and thoughtful debate about her potential elevation to the nation's highest court.

Senator Cornyn, call your office. Christmas has come early.

Follow me on Twitter: @wpascoe