Jay Rosen at PressThink (via Howard Kurtz) makes a fine point:

There is, after all, a big difference between a national political campaign and a Supreme Court nomination. In the last election, 121 million votes were cast, and each one of those people could (in theory) be influenced by a media campaign. In the Supreme Court nomination, 100 United States Senators vote. Can they be influenced in the same way?

The only mention I found of this was a lonely sentence at the end of the Washington Post's coverage of the big screaming battle ahead: "All the time and money spent on campaigns may have little influence on the outcome, said several senators, because they and their colleagues see a Supreme Court vote as a deeply personal and principled decision."

You all know the old saw about baseball (and often, politics): "Every team's going to win 54 games, every team's going to lose 54 games. It's what you do with the other 54 that counts." Now imagine I'm Joe Senator. Whether I'm a Democrat or a Republican, whether I'm from Idaho or Massachusetts, I'm going to get 54 calls saying, "The nominee is a creep," and 54 calls saying "The nominee is a god." Depending on which of those states I'm from, the other 54 calls are probably going to lean predictably one way or the other. But on a decision like this, which could literally alter the course of the country, do I want to pay attention to those last 54 calls? Or do I say, "This is one of those times when I go with my gut"? If I see this as a nation-shaking decision - which, frankly, many of the Senators will, no matter the nominee - then I say, "I've got 54 calls behind me no matter which way I go, so I'm going to go where I think I ought to go." Thus rendering the $100 million worth of TV ads and website mobilizations (to which one could also - should one have the inclination to create another post on one's blog - apply the 54/54/54 rule) a bit moot.