First off, let me be clear: Alito, with a sane Congress, would and should not be confirmed. Because he would be on the Court for perhaps 40 years, there really isn't any counterbalancing political "upside" that somehow balances out a confirmation.
With that said, Democrats have a golden opportunity to work with what we have and blend Alito and Abramoff into a single message to carry on to November 2006 -- abuse of power.
It's clear that Democrats are going to use the Abramoff scandal as a way to reinforce the image of the GOP as corrupt and power-hungry. But the Alito confirmation, if it comes to that, can also reinforce this image.
The strategy is simple: focus not only on why Alito should not be confirmed (out of the mainstream, etc.), but the process as well. Make clear to the American people that this hearing has been a sham, because the Republican Senators already knew they wanted to rubber-stamp Alito before he ever got into the room. Make clear that the Senate, because of the GOP majority, has not been doing its proper Constitutional duty of "advise and consent."
And bring out the filibuster threat. Do this regardless, and in fact because of, of any Republican threat to use the "nuclear option". We cannot let the threat of the nuclear option be enough -- we must force them to pull the trigger. And if they do, we can tie together the Republicans' sham confirmation process with the circumvention of longstanding Senate tradition via the nuclear option.
With this established, we can tie the faulty confirmation process with the corrupt political process the Republicans have been caught up for so long, exemplified by Abramoff. Add both together, and we have clear evidence of the Republicans' abuse of power.
Up here in Massachusetts, people are often surprised that this fairly liberal (and VERY Democratic) state consistently elects Republican Governors. The chief reason for this, in my opinion, is that people are wary of placing all the levers of government in one party's hands (the legislature and other statewide offices are overwhelmingly Democratic). In fact, this is a major concern brought up by voters in polls around here.
The point of this tidbit? To show that people do care about fair process, and they will respond to apparent abuses of power. If Democrats can adequately establish the Republicans' abuse of power, we will give people pause to continue the current unified Republican government we have now.
And we can adequately do this by making clear that the corrupt Alito and Abramoff events are cut from the same cloth and arise out of the fundamental flaw permeating Washington politics today -- abuse of power.