Add to them the cowards who whine about stuff (one even CRIED when he refused to vote for Bolton): Voinovich, Dewine, Graham, and Lugar. That makes 8 possible no votes.
Now, to that add McCain and Hagel, the nut-case wild cards, and you have 10 possible no votes.
In a situation like this, you would get NO democrat votes. None, zero, zip.
So, you could end up with only 45 Yes votes for a conservative nominee. We still lose, and the President looks weak.
Then, of course, we would be treated to all sorts of "the conservative movement is dead" articles, the party would split, we would probably lose one house of Congress in 2006, and we would go into the 2008 primaries with a fractured party.
I do not think a fight is worth the risk, especially if this nominee is really a conservative.
I still don't understand why I am to believe Mark Levin and Ann Coulter over Dick Cheney, James Dobson, and the President.
So when will a Republican president ever be able to nominate a truly noteworthy conservative jurist? Must all future nominees be stealth conservatives? You appear to be ceding the point that conservatives are second class citizens in our republic.
You might be right.
I still think Specter would have come around. The gang of 14, especially Graham, got scared over the criticism on their deal. McCain actually has been behaving himself. E.g., elections have consequences. Plus, he and Hagel want to run for President; they couldn't risk a no vote.
Also, Bush (or his surrogates) should have highlighted Kelo to rag on judicial liberals. Kelo should be the GOP's abortion issue--if you won't vote to overturn Kelo, you don't get confirmed.