The left: left with nothing
If you want to know why the left is going to fight so hard in the upcoming battle over the president's Supreme Court nominee, here's the explanation:
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and an adviser to Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist, said that starting with the election of 1968, "the left discovered it could no longer hold the presidency, so it turned to Congress for protection." After Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, "the left turned to the courts. This is all they have left."
As a Republican, there have been times in my life when I've known what it is to be in the minority. (See, for example, the Clinton years.) But mostly, my fellow Republicans and I have known only winning. And never have we faced a shutout. For the left, the prospect of this must feel deeply demoralizing. And so we should expect them to fight as befits people in their situation, which is to say people with nothing else to lose.