As another freeper said,
The only problem I see with this is that once the democrats are on record as being for the Fillibuster, it will take a lot more effort to make them change their minds if they are willing to withstand the initial fury. The last democrat that votes for cloture is going to get a whole lot of his base really pissed off at him. But right now we have 10% of the democrats who are already supporting Estrada. Only the most partisan dems are opposing him and this is evident by the editorials the newspapers around the nation have written. 66 editorial boards support cloture and only 8 support the fillibuster.
http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/2003/Editorialchart2.htm
Democrats think that they can get away with this because average voters don't pay much attention to stuff like this. Its our job to make them know that lots of people are paying close attention