When Frist pulls the trigger will it blow up in his face?

It is widely believed that Mullah Frist will pull the trigger on the "Nuclear Option" this week. There are several articles covering this weekend:

• The Hill: Frist begins to squeeze the trigger


• The New York Times: Filibuster Fight Nears Showdown


• Knight Ridder: Renegade Senate Republicans hold power in judicial nominees fight

This issue has become a loser for Frist and the Republicans even if they win as the public disapproves by a 2 to 1 margin. As Knight Ridder reports the out come will be determined by less than a dozen Republican Senators.

The outcome of a looming Senate confrontation over judicial nominees rests with a small band of uneasy Republicans who are reluctant to follow their leaders and force up-or-down votes on President Bush's contested federal court candidates.


They number fewer than a dozen and comprise an odd coalition that's part moderate, part maverick and part traditionalist. They include Senate veterans and relative newcomers, all worried that a clash that's come to be called the "nuclear option" would cause lasting damage to the Senate.


They also share a tepid if not frigid relationship with religious conservatives, an influential Republican bloc that's itching for a showdown with Democrats over Bush's judicial nominees.


Among this band of renegade Senate Republicans are northeasterners Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Nonconformists John McCain of Arizona and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska also are included, as is 27-year Senate veteran John Warner of Virginia, who reveres the chamber's traditions.


Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Gordon Smith of Oregon also are counted because they've voiced reservations about the showdown, though only McCain, Chafee and Snowe are considered sure votes against the Republican leadership.

Six Republican defections are needed to defeat the move to end the filibuster and three are considered sure things. The Terri Schiavo debacle may once again come back to haunt the Republicans. A majority of the voters now disagree and even fear the influence of the lunatic fringe of the religious right. The nuclear option is now closely associated with the religious right not historic Republican issues. McCain, Hagel, Chafee, Snowe and Collins have little to fear from the religious right. Specter doesn't have to fear for his seat but could face the prospect of diminished power. Warner could ride out any storm that might develop if he were to vote his conscience. If Smith were to vote against ending the filibuster he would further damage his standing in the Republican party but since he is from the blue state of Oregon a vote for ending it would probably cost him reelection in 2006.

Ironically a Republican win on the filibuster issue could well become a loss is 2006. According to the New York Times article the Democrats think they have the upper hand.

Democrats, however, believe they have the upper political hand as demonstrated in consistent public opinion polls that find strong public support for the filibuster. They say the public gets the idea that Republicans are threatening to destroy the unique nature of the Senate.

"They understand that Republicans are changing the rules in the middle of the game," said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. "They understand that Republicans are diminishing the power of the Senate and the constitutional system of checks and balances."

He and his fellow Democrats offer the drive against the filibuster as Exhibit No. 1 in arguing their broader case that the majority party is being led by those far out of the mainstream, is arrogant and abusive of its control of Congress and the White House.

"The more this small group of extremists calls the shots, the better chance Democrats have of regaining the Senate in 2006," Mr. Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said earlier this week.