The fight over John Ashcroft's nomination as attorney general is a preview of the ideological and political contests sure to surround any conservative President Bush may select for the Supreme Court, those on both sides of the Ashcroft battle agree.
Although even his harshest critics concede that the deeply conservative former Missouri senator is likely to be confirmed to head the Justice Department, liberal groups and some senators hope to rough him up in the process.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed a vote on Ashcroft until this week, and have had him busy answering more than 260 written questions in the meantime.
Opponents hope that an early, tough nomination battle may help dissuade Bush from naming strong conservative ideologues to the Supreme Court.
"The effort on Ashcroft will send a warning to the Bush administration early on that we will not stand by if he nominates judges hostile to civil rights and liberties," said Nan Aron, head of Alliance for Justice, an umbrella organization for liberal causes that was a prime opponent to the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, whom the Senate rejected.
Ashcroft, who lost re-election in November, is the most conservative of Bush's Cabinet choices, and the nomination fight has partisan juices flowing on both sides.
"They don't hope to defeat him. They hope to send a strong signal to George Bush that he better not send anybody conservative to the Supreme Court," Ashcroft defender Sen. Jon Kyl said before bitter Senate hearings.
Numerous liberal interest groups -- including the NAACP, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the civil liberties group People for the American Way -- are pressuring Democratic senators to oppose Ashcroft's nomination.
Those groups would surely line up the same way against a very conservative Bush court nominee, and make many of the same arguments. The Ashcroft opposition also includes some other groups traditionally friendly to Democrats, such as environmental, labor and gun control supporters, that might or might not ally again for a court nomination fight.
No Republicans in the evenly divided Senate have expressed opposition and while a few Democrats have announced they intend to vote against Ashcroft, several others say they will support him.
On Tuesday, People for the American Way delivered petitions to Capitol Hill with more than 150,000 signatures collected from its anti-Ashcroft Web site. It is running a $250,000 newspaper advertising campaign this week. Abortion rights groups are running radio ads and Internet campaigns.
"I think you'd pretty much predict that those same liberal groups are going to be opposed to any Bush nominee," down the line in the Bush administration, said Crystal Roberts, legal policy analyst at the conservative Family Research Council, part of a network of conservative groups, as well as Republican Party machinery, that support Ashcroft.
Ashcroft supporters have mounted their own campaigns, including radio ads and e-mails by the Issues Management Center, formed by conservative activists to blunt criticism of Bush's Cabinet nominees.
In addition, the Republican Jewish Coalition recently ran ads on Washington television stations praising Ashcroft's record. It is led by Sam Fox, who is a top GOP donor and longtime Ashcroft supporter.<
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