Democratic Trap. Don't do another "Kavanaugh."

Judge Amy Coney Barrett has the look Trump wanted. She is the archetypal "suburban housewife" and "soccer mom."

Now Trump needs Democrats to assault her, insult her, and turn her into a victim.

Hint to Democrats. Be careful out there. A confirmation fight could go very wrong.

Let's start by observing the obvious. Amy Coney Barrett has a certain look. Blue eyes, light skin and hair, regular features. This blog has received harsh criticism in the past from female Democratic readers for using the word "attractive" to describe a person with conventional American notions of physical beauty. To observe and publicly acknowledge it is, apparently, misogynistic, sexist, predatory, classist, xenophobic, demeaning, and deeply insulting. I am a very bad person.

OK. So I will tiptoe and describe Barrett this way: She has an appearance familiar to viewers of television commercials for happy users of household products, homeowner's insurance, SUVs, patio decking, fitness and beauty products. She could be cast as the female half of a happy couple in a remake of The Brady Bunch, or Modern Family.

We have seen and heard Trump's inner and outer voice well enough to know his thinking, that she looks really great for 48. He would grab her, no question, if there weren't Secret Service people around him all the time. He understands that Barrett looks a part. She is the White woman in potential peril from MS-13, from caravans from Central America, from people from shit hole countries, from Muslims, from BLM, from Antifa, from secular religion-haters, and from Democrats who defend that coalition of threats. He is hoping Democrats beat her up.

Amy Coney Barrett is no Brett Kavanaugh. The Kavanaugh hearing revealed him to be a pugnacious partisan, which was reason enough to assure his elevation to the court. It also revealed him to have been a privileged lout, a drinker, a grown-up frat-boy, whose connections let him glide upward on life's escalator. The attack on Kavanaugh was a mixed political bag for Democrats. Democrats looked overeager, too quick to accuse and jump to a conclusion, which hurt them. There was the saving grace that they were punching up at self-satisfied privilege, nobody's hero.

Attacks on Amy Coney Barrett would have the opposite feel. She would look like a victim, the nice person attacked by vicious Democrats. It would be another iteration of the frightened St. Louis White couple waving guns at protesting Blacks and Democrats, only this time the victim is more appealing. She seems so nice in a White, suburban way.

Democratic senators may be savvy enough to try to avoid attacks that look personal, but it will be difficult. The issue of Roe is unavoidable. If Lindsay Graham pounds the table and says this is an attack on good honest Christians, and that he "won't stand by quietly while Democrats gut punch Jesus Christ,"  then regardless of what Democrats do, that meme will circulate, at least in conservative media.

Comedian Bill Mahar has already given Republicans something to work with. He called her "a fucking nut" last night. Fox News pounced on it.

This blog again gets criticism, mostly from Democrats, for observing that most voters--especially those lightly engaged people on the margin--do not analyze policy carefully. What? Don't voters have a checklist of policies that they use to evaluate candidates? No, they don't.

Voters get impressions of people based on a few cues, and from that they make gut decisions. Trump picked the person who looked the part he needed. At first and second glance Amy Coney Barrett comes across as a nice person, an attractive working woman and wife. In the battle of good-guys and bad-guys, she is the good-guy.

In the Democratic frame, Mitch McConnell and Trump need to be the bad guys. They are guilty of rank hypocrisy regarding Supreme Court appointments. They said one thing about Merrick Garland and reversed themselves shamelessly with this appointment. Voters don't like high handed hypocrisy, from whatever party. They think it is typical ugly politics. Republicans may accept it as hardball politics, and a victory, stolen maybe, but a victory nevertheless, but no one thinks McConnell is motivated by principle. 

Democrats are going to lose. Republicans have the votes, simple as that. The only thing Democrats can control is what this battle is about. If Democrats attack her, it will be an attack on their own tribe, the educated woman.

But if they attack McConnell for his flagrant hypocrisy, will be an attack on out of control partisanship in the era of Trump--exactly the Biden message.

McConnell is the bad guy here.