Compiled by Salon staff

Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum, a conservative advocacy group

Sen. Jesse Helms has carried the conservative torch in the Senate for nearly 30 years. It is hard to imagine a Senate without Helms’ championing the right to life, the Boy Scouts and American sovereignty. He has earned our thanks for relentlessly challenging the United Nations and all of its dangerous treaties. Senator Helms is loved by conservatives and no one can replace him.

Paul Luebke, Democratic state representative and author of “Tar Heel Politics 2000″

This is very important in two ways. For state politics, because it opens up an opportunity for a new generation of Republicans to compete to go to the U.S. Senate. And second, for national politics, it means the end of hard right Republicans coming from North Carolina to the national stage.

Some people are talking about Lauch Faircloth coming back, but most people here don’t give him much of a chance to win that primary. The real fight is between Liddy Dole and Rep. Richard Burr from Winston-Salem, N.C., who’s a real rising star in the Republican Party.

With Helms gone, I think people will finally see that North Carolina is more moderate than South Carolina or Alabama or Mississippi. This is a politically diverse state. Democrats hold a narrow majority in the statehouse. We have a Democratic governor, one Democratic U.S. senator. The state is basically moderate. Jesse Helms is just epiphenomenal. He’s an amazingly talented politician who’s extremely skilled at getting his message across. He was willing to use hard right issues like strong anti-gay and anti-affirmative action themes to get elected, but the state has really changed.

But any suggestion that he’s retiring because he doesn’t want to be in the minority is silly. This is a man who thrived on being a minority of one. He loved nothing more than to be on the losing side of a 99-1 vote. The reality is, the Jessecrats, who were basically segregationist Democrats, are dying out and more moderates are moving into the state. The country club Republicans who have moved into the state have real qualms about somebody who is openly anti-gay, pushes the 10 commandments. You can’t run as a Helms clone and win a statewide election here.

Helms is making his announcement on the TV station where he did his five-minute liberal-bashing nightly essay for 12 years. He used to say things like, “We ought to put a fence around this zoo of Chapel Hill [the state's liberal bastion] and charge admission.” He positioned himself as a real champion of traditional, small-town values, the Andy Griffith of the right. But the state has changed on him.

Kweisi Mfume, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP

The departure of Jesse Helms now gives both the Democratic and the Republican parties an opportunity to field a slate of candidates who are much closer to the thinking and the beliefs of most Americans. We would hope that both parties would seize this chance to offer voters in North Carolina an opportunity to choose a candidate well suited for the Senate, but more important, a candidate to bring balance to the issues that face all of us, including the issue of civil rights.

David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union

No one with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan had more impact on the growth of the conservative movement than Sen. Jesse Helms.

Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights watchdog organization

Hurrah. Jesse Helms has been a vicious racist politician since he defeated the Greek N.C. Rep. Nick Galifanakis with the slogan “Elect one of us” in his first Senate race in 1972. In his 1992 race with Harvey Gannt, the African-American mayor of Charlotte, N.C., he ran an advertisement showing a black hand snatching away a job from a white hand, harking back to Jim Crow politics. He has been against everything good, decent and positive for America.

The ultraconservative movement led by Patrick Buchanan, Helms and Strom Thurmond fortunately has created more smoke than long-term fire. Helms’ retirement, 20 years too late, will have little effect on the conservative political movement. It is already gasping for air. Bush understands this and knows the danger of catering to its demands. The South has long left Helms and other divisive leaders. Sen. John Edwards, not Helms, is the future of Dixie. Elizabeth Dole will have a difficult time keeping this Republican seat.

Andrew Sullivan, author of the Daily Dish blog

I have long given a pass to Obama on Wright, because I don’t believe in the politics of guilt by association and I understand the difficulty of repudiating a pastor of long standing. I do not know Wright personally but I can believe that he has qualities that would inspire Obama and others to come to Christ. I also think some leeway is valid for the mode of discourse — prophetic Bible-thumping — that is under discussion.

But the Press Club display on Monday changes things. It was an attack on Obama; it was divisive and bitter and racist. Embracing Farrakhan at this point was a provocation.

Wright has given Obama no choice. I believe he has to publicly and clearly and irrevocably disown him and say in words that are clear and bright that Wright is now anathema to the campaign. Obama needs to say that he doesn’t seek Wright’s support under these circumstances and will not accept it. This will doubtless wound Obama. It will prove racially divisive. But Wright was clearly in his speech Monday advocating racial conflict and division. He is also clearly obsessed with the politics of the boomer era, its racial and cultural divides, and seeks to increase those divides, not overcome them.

So I think Obama has to make a speech condemning him, and explaining why his politics are very, very different. He now has the obvious defense that Wright has attacked him and disowned him — by calling him insincere. So on this, Wright and Bill Kristol agree.

Obama has to disown his own surrogate father. I see no other way forward. It’s terrible it has come to this, but the combination of Wright himself and the MSM makes it impossible to avoid. And so Obama has to take a stand.

Read more of my take from Monday, here.

Robert A. George, columnist for the New York Post

This is a problem from which Obama can’t easily extract himself. Rev. Wright is Obama’s de facto adoptive father (note how Obama’s Philadelphia speech triangulated his relationship with Wright, the black community and his white grandmother). Thus, Wright’s actions over the last few days carry something of an Oedipal/prodigal son dimension.

Wright’s Jekyll and Hyde nature is inevitably damaging to Obama. At his best — as he was in much of the NAACP speech and with some aspects of the National Press Club appearance — Wright comes across as a man of some scholarly depth and sense of American history (the good and the bad). At his worst, however (as, arguably, he was during the press club Q-and-A), he comes across as angry, dismissive and flip (not in a good way).

The Obama many Americans have come to appreciate is similar to the “good Wright.” What must unnerve many of those who have voted for Obama or are open to voting for him is the fear that there exists a “Mr. Hyde-Wright” lurking in Obama.

But most injurious to Obama are Wright’s assertions that he is speaking out to protect the black church from perceived attack. Wright seemingly feels that Obama, in defending their personal relationship (while distancing himself from Wright’s rhetoric), has been insufficiently supportive (i.e., “giving witness to”) of the good works that the black church (and Trinity United in particular) does for the black community. Wright seems committed to setting that omission straight. It suggests that he believes Obama has let down the church by not publicly defending it from a perceived attack by the larger white culture (i.e., the media).

But the single most damaging statements Wright made aren’t about America, 9/11 or AIDS. It is what he says about Obama — the person so many voters see as a “different” sort of leader. Wright just said of him what Hillary Clinton must have thought was manna from heaven: “He didn’t distance himself. He had to distance himself because he’s a politician.” Of politicians, Wright says, “Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls.” In short, politicians are people without integrity.

Thus, he generally undermines the historic nature many see in Obama’s message. But, specifically, he eviscerates Obama’s almost universally well-received Philadelphia speech on race, turning it into just another political tactic. If the man who coined the phrase “audacity of hope” thinks a member of his congregation is just a politician who says and does things “based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls,” why should voters think that politician is any more special than any of the others?

Jabari Asim, editor in chief of the Crisis magazine

I attended Rev. Wright’s address Monday and continue to be impressed by him. I first heard him preach more than 20 years ago, when I was in college. I really think his address had little to do with Obama. I found it most instructive in terms of his ability to eloquently and thoroughly lay out the history of the black Christian tradition in the United States — although as I sat there in a press gallery that was about 90 percent white, I wondered how much of his message was actually sinking in. In my view, he emphasized the black Christian churches’ long commitment to liberation, transformation and reconciliation, which he called “a non-negotiable doctrine.” I also noted his efforts to show how his church carried out its commitment in the form of church-owned and -operated senior citizens complexes and day-care centers, along with decades-old ministries devoted to HIV/AIDS patients and prisoners. I was somewhat dismayed and embarrassed to sit there as a member of the working press and watch Rev. Wright encounter questions he had already addressed in the course of his speech, as well as others (“Will Muslims go to heaven?” for example) that had no obvious relevance to Wright or his relationship with Obama.

As eloquent, insightful and forthright as Rev. Wright often is, he understands the need for Obama to address the needs of a national, multicultural constituency, and frequently suggested as much. In turn, Obama recognizes that Rev. Wright is entitled to clear his name and set the record straight regarding his comments. Obama should not let his former pastor’s public appearances distract him or those who would vote for him from the issues and problems that continue to challenge all Americans, including the failing economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

James Hannaham, Salon staff writer

At this point, there’s really no other way for Obama to respond to the continuing scrutiny that Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons have received than to denounce his ideas, and probably the man himself. But it should not be some kind of national news flash that people of color find it cathartic to criticize America in the relative safety of black churches. As crackpot as some of Wright’s unpatriotic theories are, he is far from the wackiest of black religious ideologues — check out the “black supremacist” Nuwaubians, for example, who splintered off from the Black Muslims because the guys in the bow ties weren’t radical enough. Don’t try looking for an American of African descent who has never, at any point, had at least a brief outburst of beef against the treatment of blacks in this nation, or believed, even momentarily, some paranoid hypothesis. Even Bobby McFerrin, y’all. Better safe than sorry, Mama used to say.

And what exactly is Obama’s sin in the first place? The fact that he attends Wright’s sermons doesn’t mean that he agrees with everything Wright espouses. In fact, Obama’s fatal flaw seems to be that he is too inclusive — he listens to so many opposing viewpoints that he’s bound to offend someone by including someone else, as he did with the gay community when he kept Donnie McClurkin on his “Embrace the Change” tour. But surely people realize that listening once a week to half-baked rhetoric and angry invective against the powers that be won’t necessarily rub off. Or didn’t we have fathers?

Frances Kissling, fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice

As a Roman Catholic liberation theology supporter, I have, for the most part, been enormously impressed with Jeremiah Wright’s recent appearances, his passion for the gospels and defense of black liberation theology and the black church. He has spoken hard truth to power as well as uttered some nonsense. He would be remiss if he did not use the media opportunity presented to him to push his biblical and political commitments. I think Wright has made clear that he does not speak for Obama and that he does not care if Obama is elected or not. He marches to a different drummer. It would be great if we lived in a country where Obama (and Clinton) could engage in a discourse with the best of Wright’s ideas, while unequivocally rejecting those that are factually incorrect and offensive. Unfortunately we do not live in such a country. Sen. Clinton has totally dismissed Wright; but her vision of a good pastor would exclude even Jesus Christ. Sen. Obama has been more nuanced and appropriately clear that Wright does not represent him. He should move on now, and so should we.

Eric Deggans, TV/media critic for the St. Petersburg Times newspaper

Right now, I’m thinking the best defense is a strong response. As a friend of mine e-mailed me this morning, “Here’s the speech I want him to give: ‘Gas is $3.60 a gallon, there’s a worldwide food shortage, we’re stuck in Iraq, 2 million people are losing their homes and your income isn’t keeping pace with inflation. And (the pundits are) worried about my former pastor?’”

A bit of righteous indignation might go a long way here. The bottom line is, I don’t think there’s anyone who knows Obama’s campaign well who thinks he secretly holds any of Wright’s more controversial views. So the question is: Why does this matter in a presidential contest?

If the issue is judgment about those whom a candidate counts as friends, then Obama should note McCain’s relationship with anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic pastor John Hagee or his trip to the racially backward Bob Jones University. Or Hillary Clinton’s ties to fugitive-turned-fundraiser Norman Hsu, or million-dollar tax scofflaw-turned-fundraiser Sant Chatwal.

Obama has to dismiss Wright’s outrageous statements, get some distance from the man and portray the issue itself as a distraction (which may be hard to do, given that he admitted it was a legitimate campaign issue on Fox News Sunday yesterday).

Unfortunately, Wright’s performance Monday makes it difficult for Obama to claim the man has been caricatured — since Wright did a good job of that by himself. And Obama can’t risk offending too many black churchgoers by totally throwing the good pastor under the bus.

I guess that’s why I noted in a column Monday that this will put Obama’s conciliatory skills to the test. I’m not sure what Obama can do to mitigate the impact of Wright’s speech with undecided voters in Indiana, and I’m a native Hoosier.

Todd Gitlin, author and professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University

Obama should say that he no more associates himself with Wright’s remarks than John McCain (by his own say-so) agrees with John Hagee about Satanic Catholics or righteous Armageddon. He should remind his interlocutors that McCain went looking for Hagee’s endorsement while he, Obama, did not do the same with Wright. He should also repeat that he’s running for president, and that therefore he wants to talk about the awful Iraq war, the awful economy, the awful Bush years and the danger of extending them with McCain. He should say all this with a smile and his customary grace.

Houston A. Baker Jr., author of “Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideal of the Civil Rights Era” (Columbia University Press, 2008)

Charged at the beginning of a now fateful weekend with being a congregant and faithful supporter of the views of Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church, Sen. Barack Obama grabbed his pastor’s lapels and pushed him under the bus.

The problem with buses is unpredictability. Who has not gazed peevishly up the boulevard hoping what was true five minutes ago has changed: The bus is actually coming. Still, there are no guarantees. Remember the shocked ridership when Rosa Parks tossed Jim Crow under the bus. Or, think how Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves’ bus became “the bomb.” Certainly, the bus is the ultimate American icon of public space in motion. In current political “pundit speak” it is also the ominous campaign transport of destruction. If you choose to board it and to bring along company, you need both a safety harness and impeccable character judgment. Look at the disaster and shenanigans of Leila and Franz in “Night Bus” as an example of unanchored sentimental judgment. Which brings us to the now of our 24-7 media world. When I worked as an intern reporter at the Washington Post many years ago, senior editors reminded me that in news it is always “today.” On April 28, 2008, at precisely 6:16 p.m. CT, the same editors would enjoin: “It is always right now, and the bus is the ultimate political war machine!”

Sen. Obama was concise enough about Wright when the problem first arose: “Get off the bus, Gus!” However, not long after — and, to my best knowledge, after calls from African-American pastors across America — Obama piously said he had often been in Trinity’s congregation when Rev. Wright verbally assaulted the United States under the guise of black “liberation theology.” Yet, he still claimed he found his pastor’s more militant views unacceptable, wished to distance himself from them. Then, in political footwork faster than Ali’s jabs, he said he could not disavow his intimate, familiar connection with Rev. Wright. It was him throwing Wright under the tires again. Sen. Obama’s “race speech” at the National Constitution Center, draped in American flags, was reminiscent of the Parthenon concluding scene of Robert Altman’s “Nashville”: a bizarre moment of mimicry, aping Martin Luther King Jr., while even further distancing himself from the real, economic, religious and political issues so courageously articulated by King from a Birmingham jail. In brief, Obama’s speech was a pandering disaster that threw, once again, his pastor under the bus. So, in the now — 6:35 p.m. Monday night — I sit before the flat screen and watch a minstrel, signifying, megalomaniacal, handsomely suited black minister Wright. He has washed the tire tracks off. He shrewdly has magnetically and materialistically affixed himself (like a groomed Greyhound) to the broadside of the Obama bus. There is now very little of a corrective nature that the racially elusive senator from Illinois can say to get rid of his pastor.

Dave Contarino, former presidential campaign manager for Gov. Bill Richardson

Barack Obama is at his best when he speaks past the sound bite and scandal-driven media and directly to the voters — via his speeches — which are then distributed primarily through the Internet and more thoughtful outlets. Just as he did with his moving and detailed speech on race that effectively neutralized the Wright controversy — for a while — over a month ago, Obama should push aside the media-driven focus on Wright and his comments and return, in a major speech, to what the voters care about: how his kind of change can tangibly improve the lives of real people. He should be specific about how he plans — and can — do this, as well as about how media sensationalism only diverts much-needed attention from the real problems of real people.

I anticipated such a speech during the media hype over his “bitter” comments prior to the Pennsylvania primary, but the speech will still work now. He should make it clear that while his opponents and the media may be focused on phony controversies, he is focusing on improving the lives of working Americans and their families, who are struggling every day with real economic challenges. Media superficiality and obsession with personality and pseudo-scandal are as much a part of the current dysfunctional power structure as is special-interest domination of our policy and the negative politics of personal destruction. In the right venue, Obama can push all this aside, including the current Wright flap, and explain to real Americans how he promises to reject this kind of politics and make real change in their lives. He has the ability — and the need, now more than ever — to bring it all together for the American people to understand.

Choosing a Supreme Court justice is the most important act of a president. All the nation will look to the White House to see what President Bush will do. We urge him to do what his predecessors in the White House have done — nominate a consensus candidate with the support of the other party. In so doing his nominee would sail through confirmation, benefiting both his party and the country for decades to come.

If he names a candidate who would shift the ideological balance of the court, putting individual rights in jeopardy, we anticipate that [these] extraordinary circumstances would justify a defeat.

Cass Sunstein, Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago

This will be an extremely intense and probably ugly battle ahead. O’Connor has been an old-style conservative — one who believes in tradition, in respect for the past, and in incremental change. Many modern conservatives reject incremental change; they think the Constitution has been badly misinterpreted and that it’s time to right old wrongs. The filibuster deal is completely off, I think.

The Bush administration isn’t monolithic, but key issues that will shape the battle include the president’s power to fight the war on terrorism, the right of privacy, gay and lesbian rights, separation of church and state — that’s a really big one — federalism, abortion, gun control, property rights and affirmative action. I think the Bush administration will seek a reliable, even staunch conservative — one who isn’t likely to be unpredictable.

As far as who Bush might pick, Michael McConnell [currently a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] is very conservative — and also superb, principled and judicious. He’s much more conservative than O’Connor, but he’d be a fine choice. For liberals, there are lots of worst-case scenarios, unfortunately!

Barry W. Lynn, executive director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Todays announcement by Sandra Day OConnor potentially opens the door to the greatest change in the courts direction in modern history. Although OConnor was a conservative justice, she often saw the complexity of church-state issues and tried to choose a course that respected the countrys religious diversity.

Religious right leaders are obviously going to throw their weight around. They expect the next Supreme Court seat to be filled by a justice in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. They don’t want any surprises, or “one more Souter,” as they sometimes say.

The so-called compromise over the filibuster is troubling. The Senate followed that deal by rubber-stamping three of the administration’s most outlandish judicial nominees. Two of them, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor, are major threats to the separation of church and state. It is my hope that the filibuster is still a viable option in the face of a nominee with a record of hostility to the First Amendment principle of church-state separation.

I think President Bush would like a Supreme Court that would turn back a number of civil rights advancements and weaken the separation of church and state. The administration realizes that an important constituency, its religious right base, is clamoring for greater influence on the Supreme Court.

Our organization opposed the nomination of Michael McConnell to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. We would likely join with other public interest groups in opposing his nomination to the Supreme Court. Not only is he wrongheaded on church-state issues, but he also harbors contempt for Roe vs. Wade.

It would be disastrous for all Americans if this administration gets the opportunity to fill more than one vacancy on the Supreme Court. With O’Connor’s retirement, that’s now a likely scenario, and it’s highly disconcerting.

Nancy Keenan, president, NARAL Pro-Choice America

The shape of this nomination will be determined by President Bush — will he unite the country by consulting senators from both parties and finding a consensus pick, or will he try to force a hardcore conservative through on a partisan vote? If he chooses the latter course, it would certainly fit the definition of a “special circumstance” that would warrant a Senate filibuster. Certainly, senators should not give their assent to any nominee who can’t demonstrate a commitment to personal freedom, or who won’t answer questions about such basic constitutional questions as the right to privacy.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s decision to retire from the Supreme Court marks a significant moment for the values of individual freedom and the right to privacy that are core principles under Roe vs. Wade. We’ll look back on Justice O’Connor as someone who put reason ahead of ideological fervor, standing her in stark contrast to many of the judges who might replace her if the radical right gets its way. When it comes to reproductive freedom, her tenure has been one of narrowly averted disaster. At key junctures when a woman’s right to choose could have been lost entirely, she kept Roe alive, but at a significant cost for many of our most vulnerable women. Now that she has retired, stakes are high — and NARAL Pro-Choice America is prepared to defend Roe vs. Wade against anti-choice nominees.

The radical right has been trying to overturn Roe vs. Wade for a generation, and they are looking to President Bush to get them to that promised land. There’s no question it’s their top priority — and one that he has shared throughout his political career. But if he chooses that route he’ll have a fight on his hands with the 60 percent of Americans who disagree.

Roberta Combs, president, Christian Coalition of America

We believe that we have already seen a prelude to what is on the horizon. The liberals have shown during the nomination process of the lower court nominations that they are going to fight with all their vigor on the Supreme Court fight. All over Washington in the next couple of weeks there will be “war rooms” that will be set up on both sides to fight and support the president’s nominee.

This is going to be the most powerful fight ever in the history of the Supreme Court nomination process and we will be ready. The Christian Coalition of America has set up our own “war room” around the country. As of last week, CCA has formed the National Judiciary Task Force. In the next few weeks, we will have a state chairman in every state in the country. The main goal of the task force is to be prepared and ready with our grass roots to make certain President Bush’s nominee is confirmed. We will have thousands of petitions, make phone calls to every one of the 50 senators and have rallies in support of the nominee in every state.

As we see it, the key issues the Bush administration will have in mind when making nominations are overturning Roe vs. Wade, allowing the Ten Commandments and crhches in public places, and overturning the Massachusetts decision allowing same-sex marriage.

The best-case scenario is that Janice Rogers Brown will be nominated and confirmed. She is an American Cinderella story. She was raised in the segregated South by sharecroppers and rose to become a state Supreme Court judge in California. She is a minority by being a woman and an African-American. Justice Brown is very qualified and would do an excellent job. The worst-case scenario would be the confirmation of someone who does not uphold the Constitution and legislates from the bench.

Ben Brandzel, campaign director, MoveOn PAC

Now that Justice O’Connor has resigned, our members and the American people know that some of our most basic rights and freedoms are on the line in a very real way. O’Connor is a very respected and, in many circles, beloved justice, which ensures there will broad engagement in finding the right replacement for her. But also, we know that the balance of the court is really in the air, and could be shifted dramatically by the wrong nominee. So the priority of our campaign and our members’ energy around defending their rights couldn’t be higher. We’re anticipating a sustained and intense campaign to protect our rights if Bush’s nominee is not in the same vein as Justice O’Connor.

Let’s look at Bush’s Patriot Act, when Bush exploited people’s mourning after 9/11 and gave the federal government unchecked powers to spy on our private records, communication and even our homes.

Or the way Bush used the Schiavo tragedy to score political points by violating our most basic individual right, the right to make our own private family decisions.

When Bush nominates a new Supreme Court justice, the American people will insist that our senators do what it takes to protect our rights — it’s that simple. And I think that’s exactly what the Senate will do. They know that people won’t tolerate an extremist nominee, just like they didn’t tolerate the president’s outrageous meddling in the Schiavo family tragedy. Republicans learned a hard lesson about following their radical leadership into disaster, and Democrats saw that they can stand up for our rights and win.

A filibuster may be necessary to stop a nominee who poses an extraordinary threat to our rights. If that happens, we trust the 14 senators who signed the compromise that ended the “nuclear option” will keep their word. The public has been against the “nuclear option” from Day One. If it comes down to that fight, I know the American people will win, and our rights will be preserved.

Mark Moller, senior fellow in constitutional studies, Cato Institute; editor-in-chief of Cato Supreme Court Review

Justice O’Connor’s retirement presages a blockbuster fight over the next Supreme Court nomination. Her status as a judicial moderate only heightens the tension: Liberal activists can now complain that Bush will have an opportunity to replace a “swing vote” with a conservative “ideologue.” A tough fight and filibuster is all but certain for any judge that watchdog groups label “right-wing.” Generally, that seems to include judges who might enforce constitutional limits on federal and state governments.

There is only one problem: The label doesn’t fit. That’s surely the lesson of this surprising Supreme Court term — which saw Clarence Thomas defending sick marijuana users in Gonzales vs. Raich and “liberal” justices, like John Paul Stevens, siding with rich property developers in Kelo vs. City of New London.

Predictably, liberal critics demand that Bush replace O’Connor with someone who shares her centrist tendencies. And yes, O’Connor was a swing vote. But conservatives should remind critics that O’Connor — who spent a post-law-school year volunteering for Barry Goldwater’s Senate reelection campaign — also is far more of a “conservative” than her critics, right and left, are willing to credit. That’s surely the lesson of this surprising Supreme Court term — which saw O’Connor closing her tenure with stinging dissents in cases like Gonzales v. Raich, involving a Commerce Clause challenge to federal drug policy. There, she argued that the Court should aggressively place new constitutional limits on federal power.

The fact is, liberals are all mixed up about “conservative” judicial philosophy. For example, federalism, a liberal bugaboo, arguably works to liberals’ benefit, since blue state policies (gay marriage, stem cell research, global warming) are most successful on the local level.

In fact, classic “conservative” judicial doctrine seems to be undergoing reassessment on the right. National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru, for example, recently pooh-poohed the federalism “revolution.” Why encourage judges to rouse themselves, he asks? On average, they are no friends to conservatives. President Bush, too, has been AWOL in the big federalism cases. Indeed, he invariably asks the justices to give him extreme deference.

Thus the stage is set for the most incoherent political dust-up in recent memory: a ritualized fight over judicial nominees driven by habit and partisan rancor, in which the two major parties, while dutifully chanting old slogans, are more confused about what’s at stake than ever before.

Phyllis Schlafly, founder and president, Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund

I expect President Bush to fulfill his campaign promise by appointing a justice like Scalia or Thomas. He would be someone who believes that the supreme law of the land is the constitution and not what the latest Supreme Court decision is.

Most conservatives are extremely distressed with the way the court has tried to rewrite the constitution and we want good judges, strict constitutionalists, who believe in the way the constitution was written and not the way some justices wish it was written. You’ve got a clear example of this with the Kelo decision.

The Supreme Court just reversed its very firm decision in the sodomy case. And if you can rethink sodomy, you can rethink abortion. We don’t want someone who will say Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, because it isn’t the law of the land. It’s a Supreme Court decision.

After O’Connor’s last two votes against the Ten Commandments, we’re delighted that she has retired. Although, I do believe she was right on the Kelo case. She is noteworthy for switching back and forth. She kind of fits the stereotype of a woman who changes her mind.

Brian C. Anderson, senior editor of City Journal, the Manhattan Institute

With Sandra Day OConnor announcing her retirement, the battle over the courts will be even nastier than it would be if William Rehnquist were the justice stepping down, since in many important decisions, OConnor has been the swing vote empowering the courts liberal bloc.

That is, you wont be replacing one sometime originalist (Rehnquist) with another originalist — though that may soon follow — but a sometime advocate of the living Constitution (O’Connor) with an originalist. Thats an enormous threat to the Democrats, who for decades have been the party of the living Constitution, achieving through the courts what they couldnt win at the ballot box.

I think the filibuster deal puts the Democrats in a difficult spot, since they have agreed to filibuster only the most extreme of candidates, making it harder for them to oppose well-respected judges like J. Michael Luttig or John Roberts.

The important thing for conservatives will be to nominate a justice who upholds what Scalia calls the enduring Constitution. That means, he or she will understand that America adopted a written Constitution precisely because it doesnt change over time, as does the unwritten British constitution. It means that they believe high-court judges must base their decisions on the text and structure of the Constitution, as originally understood (and this implies that there are right and wrong readings of the law). And they must be impartial interpreters — otherwise they are politicians.

Again, liberals will oppose such a nominee because they have become the party of the living, evolving Constitution on issues ranging from abortion to, most recently, property rights and religious expression in public, where liberal justices have discovered things in the Constitution that would have shocked and appalled its original architects.

Regarding potential nominees, Luttig would be a great choice — hes a sharp legal thinker in the Scalia mold. Ive also been impressed by the legal writings of Michael McConnell. A worst-case scenerio would be the nomination of a non-originalist like Alberto Gonzales.

Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights

Given the Bush administration’s clear intent to push forward what has been called a conveyor belt of conservative, right-wing appointees to the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, this is a crucial moment in the country’s history. There is the real danger that the Supreme Court will become simply a rubber stamp for the executive branch. It’s a very frightening moment, because the culture of rights that we’ve built up over the last 100 years could be undone by appointments to the Supreme Court that tip the balance.

Coming from the vantage point of many of us who feel that civil liberties and the rule of law are under assault, you at least felt that you potentially had a chance with Sandra Day O’Connor on the court. In fact, very often people aimed their arguments at her, because she was the influential voice on the bench on many of these decisions. She saved the day for whatever vestige of affirmative action we have left. If the next appointment is to the right of O’Connor, someone like Scalia or Clarence Thomas, it’s self-evident what will happen. It’ll be 5-4 the other way on many critical decisions. There could be a fundamental sea change on cases like Roe vs. Wade and the last vestiges of affirmative action.

President Clinton set a pattern here. He did not appoint the most liberal judges he could have appointed. He appointed moderates, in the face of the Republicans crying, as they have a right to do, that they didn’t want “liberal extremists.” This has not been the case as relates to the Bush administration’s recent appointments to the appellate division, and that’s why there’s the fear that, when it comes to the Supreme Court, he will appoint people in lockstep with the agenda of the radical right, allowing that agenda to be more readily imposed.

Democrats reserved the right, in a situation where they see a nominee as being extreme, to filibuster. If Bush comes forward with a nominee who is clearly anti-civil rights, anti-civil liberties, anti-labor, anti-women’s progress, and anti-environment, it will have to be an all-out fight. That means massive pressure on Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, for moderation and for sanity. It means mobilizing demonstrations to increase the public outcry, so that the American public has a sense of what’s at stake. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that entailed people going to the point of civil disobedience to call this not only to the attention of the American public, but to the world. I can’t forecast what types of civil disobedience might take place; I’m just saying it might go that far, in terms of people being willing to take dramatic steps to show the world that there are forces in this country that are not prepared to sacrifice the Bill of Rights to right-wing extremists.

Stanley Kutler, author of “Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Oval Office Tapes”

Felt provided the FBI raw field reports and other information in the first days following the break-in. We long have suspected this. But through the life of the controversy, others provided ample information to the Senate Select Committee, the U.S. attorney, the House Judiciary Committee, and the special prosecutor. We owe enormous thanks to Felt for providing the essential first information. Richard Nixon tried to subvert the FBI and Felt simply would not allow him to do so.

Sean Wilentz, professor of history, Princeton University

It’s interesting to have it confirmed that Deep Throat came from within the FBI, which the Nixon White House was trying to throttle. Of course whistleblowers and informants still exist inside executive departments and agencies, especially those that feel abused and manipulated by the Oval Office. Their stories even get reported sometimes, although the reports are often buried — just as the Watergate story was at first. The difference between then and now has everything to do with the courage and tenacity of the young Woodward and Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, and Katherine Graham — rare enough qualities then and, I fear, even rarer qualities now.

David Daley, features editor for Details Magazine

So Mark Felt lied to me when I asked him if he was Deep Throat six years ago. I’m not especially surprised. Felt was a career law-enforcement officer, who even in the Vanity Fair story in which he outed himself, seemed conflicted about whether leaking was ever the right thing to do. That’s probably why the secret held over all these decades. Felt did not see himself as a hero. So he did something remarkable: He kept his quiet. And he gave me a fascinating denial when I asked the still-sharp, then-86-year-old if he was Deep Throat. “I would have done better,” he said, after an explicit no. “I would have been more effective. Deep Throat didn’t exactly bring the White House crashing down, did he?”

Felt’s denial was what Woodward and Bernstein might have called a non-denial denial. By denying that he was the secret source, but also doubting the usefulness of Deep Throat, Felt seems like a man at war with himself, even decades later.

I don’t know what Felt’s motivations are for talking now. But his timing couldn’t be better. Reporters for Time and the New York Times are facing prison sentences for discussions they had with a White House source who told them that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent days after her husband wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Times questioning the Bush administration’s pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. It was a partisan leak, but it’s the reporters who might go to jail. It’s great to have a reminder of someone who risked everything for the truth, and until now, never talked about it again. So I can forgive Felt for lying to me in 1999. I just wish he had given a call back when he was finally ready for his hero’s welcome.

Adrian Havill, author of “Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein”

If Woodward, Bernstein, [Ben] Bradlee and Felt all say so, who am I to say it’s not true? A lot of us have egg on our face right now — but there are still a lot of loose ends to tie up, what look like embellishments. I don’t know if some questions will ever be answered.

Woodward and Bernstein both said “All the President’s Men” was gospel, and that they didn’t embellish. For one thing, they described Deep Throat as a heavy smoker — but Felt stopped smoking in 1943. There are still things that don’t jibe, and I think we still need to look at them.

Felt suggested in many interviews, and in his own memoir in 1979, that anyone who would reveal the kind of information Deep Throat did would be a traitor. Now today, we have many people lauding Felt as a patriot and an American hero. A lot of so-called Watergate experts have got to be wondering about today’s news, but I think one reason that all of them, and I myself, were wrong is because Felt made so many remarks about being a traitor; if that won’t throw you off, I don’t know what will. He had a good story.

I think we have an even more serious situation regarding anonymous sources and the White House today. Take the Newsweek story on Quran abuse at Guantánamo, or the Valerie Plame scandal. And the WMD issue with Iraq, of course, is the biggest, and may be the biggest of all time. Unfortunately, media like the Washington Post and everybody else just bought the Iraq-WMD story hook, line and sinker. I guess people believe that if you’re a president and you assert something in front of the nation, you can’t be telling a lie. But in fact, it’s done all the time.

It’s time for the next wave of bold ideas. There is a big idea out there that will energize the base and bring new voters to the polls in November: reforming Social Security by creating personal retirement accounts, which would allow workers to invest a large portion of their Social Security tax dollars into individual accounts that they own and control. This idea is popular because it frees future generations from relying on the whim of congressional promises for their retirement, and it solves the looming Social Security unfunded liability crisis. It’s also a way to let Americans at all income levels begin to build real wealth — and personal accounts are especially popular with younger voters.

President Bush has shown support for this big idea, which could be the central plank of his new “ownership society” vision. Alternatively, John Kerry has no answer to the promise of personal retirement accounts, and he has no plan to save the crumbling Social Security system.

Social Security reform was a key differentiating issue for Republicans in the successful Senate races in 2002 in Colorado, North Carolina and New Hampshire, and I think the issue is a winner for Bush and the Republican Party this November.

Stuart Rothenburg, editor and publisher of the Rothenburg Political Report; contributor to The Hill.

As a New Yorker, I’ve seen plenty of heroics at Madison Square Garden — from Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Andy Bathgate and Rod Gilbert, all Big Apple sports heroes. Now, President George W. Bush heads to the Garden needing one of those comebacks that New York’s basketball and hockey teams have rarely accomplished over the past two decades.

The president trails Sen. John Kerry narrowly both in national polls and in key states, but his bigger problem is that a majority of Americans say that the country is headed off on the “wrong track,” not in the “right direction.” Incumbents rarely benefit from a mood favoring change.

So what does President Bush do, assuming that he doesn’t bench himself or Vice President Dick Cheney and call Sen. John McCain in as a substitute? (He won’t.) Ideally, Bush needs to change the public’s perception of the economy and the war in Iraq. But talking about those two issues in New York isn’t likely to accomplish much. Only external events can do that, and they are not in the president’s control.

I expect Republicans to do three things at their convention. First, they will make the case for Bush’s performance on domestic issues, arguing that he accomplished a great deal (in education and prescription drugs) and fought for other things, such as medical malpractice reform, conservative judges and drilling in the Arctic, that Democrats killed.

Second, they will try to make the race for the White House a referendum on the president’s handling of the war on terror. Bush’s numbers in that area have slipped over the past few months, but his handling of terrorism remains his greatest strength.

And third, Bush’s strategists believe that the president’s prospects rest on their ability to make Kerry an unacceptable alternative to swing voters and late deciders. That means that they must continue to raise questions in New York about the Massachusetts senator’s character, judgment, consistency and values — about his record in the Senate, his often vague comments about values and about Iraq, and his ability to handle the war on terror.

Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation

Because there are so few undecided voters, President Bush needs to get every vote in his coalition out on Election Day. To accomplish that, he should use alternative media to the greatest extent possible. Richard Viguerie [chairman of American Target Advertising, a direct mail company] has suggested that whichever candidate manages to motivate his base to the greater extent will win the election. I believe that is right.

The Kerry vote is highly motivated. They just want to dump Bush. But Bush should lay out his vision for a second term (and I am assuming that his proposals will excite voters) and then discuss this in detail with every talk show — especially Christian radio and TV shows — every host on the Fox News Channel, all of the major syndicated talk shows plus some regional hosts who have good ratings, editorial boards of friendly publications, and so on. Enthusiasm for Bush should be at a fever pitch by Election Day.

Bush has built an amazing voter ID and turnout operation with an unprecedented number of volunteers. Unfortunately, while the volunteers have been given minimal training, they have not had an opportunity to show what they can do. In those states with late primaries, the Bush-Cheney ticket should exercise their volunteers to see what they produce. They may be just supporting a referendum rather than a candidate, but they need to be tested to see if course corrections are necessary. For those states with no late elections, the volunteers should be given an assignment, perhaps a petition of some sort. They absolutely need to be tested. Otherwise the campaign will find out too late who did not produce.

In the debates, as former Gov. Bill Weld, R-Mass., has pointed out, John Kerry is the master of changing the subject. President Bush needs to practice keeping Kerry’s feet to the fire. The debates should be about Kerry’s record in the U.S. Senate for two decades. He cannot justify some of the votes he cast. Moreover, while the president should not get into questions of Kerry’s service in Vietnam, he should raise the issue of Kerry’s testimony when he returned from Vietnam, which was an insult to the entire military.

Meanwhile, the more the president focuses on the nation’s business, the more it will remind voters who is the president and who is not.

Will he follow this advice? I don’t know. George W. Bush is really an independent fellow. He only takes advice that he has asked for.

Ed Kilgore, policy director of the Democratic Leadership Council

The dynamics of this presidential contest are not favorable to George W. Bush. Undecided voters rarely break toward well-known incumbents at a time of relative unhappiness with the direction of the country. The president’s original swing-voter strategy, from No Child Left Behind to the prescription-drug benefit, is in ruins. And the idea that Republicans are going to outgun Democrats in turning out their voters is almost certainly a false hope.

Mr. Bush needs to do something different to change the race and win. Here are three options:

1. Admit a few mistakes. The perception of the president as a man of simple values and total self-confidence has generally been a political asset. But when things go wrong — for example, in the economy and in Iraq — this same quality begins to look suspiciously like pigheadedness, or even cluelessness. Bush needs to understand that showing he can admit mistakes and adjust his policies to reflect real-life circumstances would strengthen, not weaken, his regular-guy credentials.

2. Triangulate. The president’s lukewarm approval ratings are a lot better than those of the Republican-controlled Congress. And at a time when most undecided voters think the country’s on the “wrong track,” the GOP’s undivided control of Washington is not a good thing for Bush. At a minimum, he should make it clear he will rein in the free-spending habits of his friends in Congress, which would simultaneously reassure conservatives upset about runaway spending and swing voters upset about budget deficits.

3. Go positive. Bush-Cheney ’04 is playing a dangerous game by going so negative, so often, against John Kerry, forgetting that Bush’s promise to “change the tone in Washington” and serve as a “uniter, not a divider,” was very important to his 2000 victory. Undecided voters hate the negative stuff, which is why Kerry hasn’t gone there. Maybe the idea is to drag the race into the muck and depress overall turnout. If not, Bush needs to lift his message and let his critics look like the mad dogs.

Will the incumbent do any of these three things? Probably not. And that’s why this race remains John Kerry’s to lose.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard magazine

Bush can win the election if he runs a competent campaign in which he points out the following truths:

He is a tax cutter; Kerry is a tax hiker.

He will fight to preserve traditional marriage; Kerry won’t.

He is fighting a tough-minded war on terror, taking the fight to the enemy; Kerry would fight a sensitive war on terror, allowing them to take the fight to us.

And then Bush needs simply to sit back and observe as others bring to light the character and import of Kerry’s single most famous public statement: His April 22, 1971, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the alleged war crimes committed daily by Americans in Vietnam.

Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies, American Enterprise Institute

I don’t know what Bush will do, but I think I know what he has to do. Next week at the convention, and in the remaining two months before the election, the president has to persuade the American people that he is the better person to confront the terrorist, weapons proliferation, and rogue state challenges that exist.

If we want a defensive candidate, then, as Chris Hitchens so viciously wrote in the New York Times Book Review, “John Kerry would make a perfectly decent peacetime president.” However, as the national conversation continues about how we face up to existing threats, one of the things that has become very clear is that a failure of imagination is fatal.

There aren’t enormous distinctions between the two parties. Yes, one candidate is more likely to raise taxes, or less likely to embrace the United Nations, but these are the lines of every single election. The major difference is that Bush’s message is “I’m taking the battle to the enemy’s territory.” And John Kerry’s message is “If you hit us, we’ll hit you back hard.”

The Kerry campaign has made a great deal of support for first responders and of massive retaliation in the event of an attack. Bush has made very clear that his No. 1 goal is not to have to retaliate, not to need vengeance, not to be able to clean up better, but to do his utmost to preempt the attack. If he can persuade Americans that his is the right way to go, then he is the candidate that they are going to choose.

Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report; political analyst for the National Journal

The challenge for the Bush campaign is to expand its own base, mobilizing more conservative and Republican voters far more than they have ever been energized before, and turning Kerry into a patently unacceptable alternative. But the dangers of such a strategy are obvious. The more a candidate panders to the party base, the more likely they are to antagonize moderate, independent swing voters. When an incumbent president steps out of the Rose Garden, so to speak, and into the gutter, he loses much of the aura and protection that come with the job. Yet President Bush may have no other alternative.

As Republicans gather in New York, Bush has his work cut out for him. While many observers see national polls that have shown the race roughly tied since early April, it does not mean that the two have equal chances of winning.

Historically, we know that well-known, well-defined incumbents rarely win over many undecided voters on Election Day. With this widely accepted dynamic in mind, this year’s pool of undecided voters must look especially daunting to Republican strategists. According to five Associated Press/Ipsos Public Affairs national polls conducted between April and early August, 41 percent of the 3,719 registered voters said that the country was headed in the right direction, to 56 percent who thought the country was on the wrong track. Among the 327 registered voters who were undecided in the presidential race, only 19 percent thought the country was headed in the right direction, while 74 percent said off on the wrong track.

While the broader pool of registered voters was evenly split on presidential approval, only 25 percent of the undecided voters approved of his performance — and 68 percent disapproved. On the pivotal question of handling the economy among all registered voters, 46 percent approved of Bush’s performance, while 52 percent disapproved. But again, looking at the undecided pool of voters, only 24 percent approved, while 69 percent disapproved.

Not surprisingly, then, Democrats recently had an 18-point advantage over Republicans among the undecideds. Forty-three percent of the undecided voters consider themselves Democrats, 25 percent Republicans and the remaining 32 percent independent. So the pattern of undecided voters usually breaking overwhelmingly in favor of challengers over well-known, well-defined incumbents looks very likely to be replicated this year.

At this stage it seems unlikely that a couple months of good economic numbers, a diminished number of U.S. casualties in Iraq that might remove the war from the nation’s news headlines, and three strong debate performances would change the structure of a race that in no way resembles what Bush campaign strategists might have anticipated a year ago. Barring a major external event, a major terrorist attack, a well-timed capture of Osama bin Laden, or some other major international development that unifies the country, President Bush will need to be perhaps 3 percentage points ahead going into Election Day, as he is highly unlikely to win over more than, say, a quarter of the undecided vote.