that letter takes a more liberal position than she will has since she s been in the administration. so what her defenders can say is yea, she s lifter general now. it s her job to support the administration policies but she isn t as much of a an conservative on these views as it might first appear. that will be their line, i believe. keli, senator expect ser an intriguing one to watch, of course, because he actually voted against elena kagan last year at her hearings for solicitor general. he was then a republican. he s now a democrat in a fierce primary fight. any early word from his office or what s your best guess what you think he will do here? he was also the chair of the judiciary committee until he switched parties just a year ago. he really understands this process. he will be one to watch. i have not spoken to his office this morning. but when you look at the political pressure he is under at home in pennsylvania with his primary challenge or congressman
but the sense is just by looking at the flubs that she should be able to get through. kelly, last year, sonia sotomayor met with nearly every member of the senate and many senators will tell you those meetings make a real difference. let me turn to andrea mitchell, a watcher of these proceedings for many years. it seems the president did not feel as much pressure as did he last time to pick a woman and yet, couldn t resist the opportunity to make a little history and bring something approximating more gender equity to the supreme court. reporter: i think that is a major factor. obviously, his comfort level knowing her intellectual firepower, knowing and working with her, the fact she worked for joe biden on the hill, all three branches of government. even though she doesn t have judicial experience she has been solicitor general and has experience in that in the executive branch and also, of course, was a member of joe biden s staff on the senate judiciary committee and snows the s
just a month ago specter was up by 53-32. running against george bush still has power somewhere and sestak is running an ad linking expecter to bush and using a clip from his party switch newsers against him suggesting he only flipped to the democratic side for political expedancy. we finally have the race in pennsylvania that a lot of people expected. by the way, as you touched on in that questioning of kelly o donnell earlier, elena kagan s nomination which specter was against as solicitor general is bound to come up. you talk about bad timing. the final week of the pennsylvania primary, and joe sestak gets one fresh piece of evidence to go to pennsylvania democratic voters and say see, arlen expect ser not a real democrat. joe, you remember when we had him on, seemed like he hinted he would give kagan another look should she be nominated to the court. now he has his chance. coming up, world markets surge on the greek bailout plan.
this will be the first nominee in 38 years who doesn t have a judicial record. no record of decisions. she s written some law review articles. so what the conservatives are going to criticize her for we expect and what we ve heard from her is decisions she made while dean at harvard on denying recruiters access to the campus because of harvard s nondiscrimination policy and the fact that the military banned gays from coming in the military. the liberals will say during her time as solicitor general, she s been too support i be of bush era administration policies in fighting the war on terror. officials secrets, whether you can detain people indefinitely who are considered enemy combatants. she did write a letter, she and some other presidents of law schools, yale, stanford, harvard, some other law schools wrote a letter to pat leahy of the judiciary committee during the time at that time congress was considering extending the military commissions act and
solicitor general kagan but only the president and solicitor general kagan will makera. there s anticipation building. john podesta, the former white house chief the staff, the deputy to elena kagan, a lot of different people here to support her. savannah, have you seen any republican senators or conservative activists in the room? any of that quick reachout that they made or we don t know yet? just did a quick look. nobody leaped out at me so no, i don t think so. fair enough. savannah, we will check back in with you throughout the hour. thanks very much. moving on to we were talking about earlier, bob bennett acknowledged how tough the landscape looks for republicans in a tearful statement after his convention defeat. the political atmosphere, obviously, has been toxic. and it s very clear that some of the soets that i have cast have added to the toxic environment. well, as we look ahead to