Preference issue is one liberals like Sotomayor are on otherside of voters

Stuart Taylor:

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... conservatives and like-minded centrists can win the political debate if they focus not on buzzwords but on in-depth, civil discourse about the very big issue on which Sotomayor and her liberal supporters are most at odds -- and the conservative justices most in tune -- with the vast majority of Americans.

That issue is racially preferential affirmative action. By this, I mean the many forms of supposedly benign discrimination against whites and Asians that have been engineered over the past 45 years to advance blacks and Hispanics in the workforce, in college admissions, and in government contracting.

The long-standing public disapproval of such preferences was documented yet again by a major Quinnipiac University poll released on June 3, showing that American voters, by a lopsided margin, want them abolished.

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The Quinnipiac poll showed that respondents, by well over 3-to-1, want the Supreme Court to overturn the Appellate panel's (Ricci) decision. And although the poll shows that this has not yet hurt Sotomayor's popularity much, the case will become more salient later this month. The justices are widely expected to reverse the panel's decision.

None of this is to suggest that the nominee's racially preferential actions put her outside the liberal Democratic mainstream. Quite the contrary. Most liberals are addicted to racial preferences and identity politics.

But this puts liberal Democrats very far out of sync with the overwhelming majority of Americans, including us centrists. President Obama made noises during the campaign that seemed to suggest he understood this. But the Sotomayor nomination -- for all her inspiring accomplishments, powerful intellect, and devotion to the underprivileged -- looks like a strong Obama endorsement of the racial preferences and identity politics that she has supported.

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The 3,000-plus respondents also wanted the Supreme Court to overturn Sotomayor's New Haven firefighter decision by a whopping 71-19 percent.

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There is much more.

This is an issue that I think Republicans can score points on and educate votes on the way liberals ignore their wishes. It also points out the dangers of appointing liberal judges who thwart the wishes to the people in order to push their own policy agenda. The GOP senators need to study this piece for questions for Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. It is an excellent opportunity to focus on issues where Democrats are on the wrong side of the voters.