Ashcroft's Close-Call Nod Is a Warning Shot to Bush

Thursday afternoon, the Senate voted on the confirmation of John Ashcroft as U.S. attorney general. Despite a barrage of vocal opposition from liberal groups and several Democrat Senators, the chamber, split 50-50 between the two parties, was long expected to give the controversial nominee the nod. TIME congressional correspondent Douglas Waller, who's been keeping a close eye on the proceedings, explains what's what now that the votes are tallied.

Q: Did this vote shake out the way most people expected it to?

Waller: Yes. Most people predicted there'd probably be about 42 Democrats voting against Ashcroft, and all 50 Republicans to vote in favor of confirmation. And today, that's what happened.

Q: Were those kinds of numbers pretty much all the Democrats were hoping for in the past couple of days?

Waller: Yes. The interesting thing, of course, about this kind of margin is that it would have been enough to maintain a filibuster, if [Senator Edward] Kennedy had gathered the support to forge ahead and [Democrat Senate leader Tom] Daschle had welcomed the idea. There's no appetite here for a hard fight. What we've seen from all this is that Democrats just aren't as good at guerrilla legislating as the Republicans are. The Dems are out of shape — they haven't had to do this for eight years, after all.

Q: So they gave up on the idea of defeating the nomination outright a long time ago?

Waller: I think so; instead they decided to concentrate on sending a message, both to Bush and to their supporters. The Ashcroft opposition really was about limbering up the mailing lists, and really energizing civil rights, abortion rights and gun control groups.

So what's the message the Democrats hope they've sent to President Bush?

Waller: Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who has announced his support for the Ashcroft nomination, said yesterday that he and other moderates were willing to give Bush this one free pass — but if it's reciprocated by sending hard-right nominees for Senate confirmation to judicial posts, some of the moderate Democrats will fight back. If I had to guess, I'd say they might try to pick off a really conservative assistant AG candidate.

Q: Is anyone surprised by the fervor of Senator Kennedy's opposition to the Ashcroft nomination? He's really been at the forefront of this fight, and even after the confirmation went through called Ashcroft's attitude towards civil rights law "contemptuous."

Waller: To a certain extent Kennedy's return is like a revival of the old war horse. Kennedy's very close to the liberal groups who opposed this nomination — much more so than other senators. So his position on Ashcroft isn't really all that surprising.

Q: What about Russ Feingold's support for the nomination? On paper, anyway, he appears to be one the Senate's most left-leaning members.

Waller: Yes, but Feingold is a real independent, and he's also worried about setting a precedent for opposing nominations solely on the basis of ideology — and he worries that future liberal appointees would face retaliation if the fight over Ashcroft had gotten bloody.