Aside from the positives of accomplishment, qualifications, and the smart demographics (working class background, etc.), Sottomayor is a tactically challenging pick on Obama's part for the Republican party to confront. The Republican establishment probably sees that a full-bore fight to block her will be politically very expensive, but the right wing and the base-building organizations will see it as a chance to organize and rally the troops (knowing full well that they will lose the fight but bring in a lot of money).

Once again, the Obama team has offered the right wing a juicy opportunity to paint themselves into a yet narrower and yet more unpleasant corner -- an opportunity some on the reactionary right will be unable to resist, even if the party machinery and the Senators are reluctant to go there.

One often sees situations where polarization allows extremists and dead-enders on both sides of a conflict to play a disproportionate role and to seize the political oxygen from moderates and pragmatists. Obama's political genius -- no doubt enabled by the frustration of the last 25 years for Democrats -- has been to mobilize right-wing polarization in a way that reinforces moderate and pragmatic support for him without his having to cede much ground to left-wing outliers. He's in an apparent win-win confrontation with the Republican base -- they get to be the 'true' Republicans in the public's eyes, and he gets the support of independents as well as Democrats. But in our system, that gives him all the marbles at the end of the game.

It will be interesting to see if the Democrats can build on this strategy into the 2010 elections -- if it works, the Republican position may well weaken even further.