Several Democrats took up the challenge from the right. They noted that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. had pledged to be modest judges who would abide by precedent.
Instead, the Democrats said, the two have lined up with conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and pressed to overturn precedents on school integration, abortion, campaign finance and job discrimination.
"It showed me that Supreme Court justices are much more than umpires calling balls and strikes," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), in a rebuke to Roberts, who had described his job as being like an umpire.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) removed the suspense early on. "Unless you have a complete meltdown, you are going to be confirmed," he told Sotomayor.
But he said he was troubled by her speeches, including the "wise Latina" reference. "If I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over," Graham said.
If there is a precedent for the Republican strategy of critiquing a well-qualified high court nominee, it would be the Democrats' attacks on President George W. Bush's nominees Roberts and Alito.
Republicans controlled the Senate then, assuring that the two would be confirmed. But Democrats were determined to brand the Republican nominees as conservative activists.
Republican aides said they understood that the odds were in Sotomayor's favor. But at the very least, the party hopes to use the hearing as a "teaching opportunity" to broadcast the GOP's conservative message to viewers. Republican senators want to highlight the differences between their view of the courts and the Democratic view -- and perhaps paint Sotomayor as a product of identity politics.
That is why Republicans will bring up some bread-and-butter issues such as gun rights, abortion and the use of foreign law by judges. All of it will be an attempt to frame Sotomayor as not being in the American mainstream.
But some legal and political experts questioned the Republican strategy.
"I am somewhat at a loss to understand what they are doing," said University of Texas professor Lucas A. "Scot" Powe Jr., a historian of the Supreme Court. "Her decisions are so middle of the road. Maybe they are trying to make the case that unless you agree with Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito, you are necessarily biased."
Don Sipple, a Republican political strategist based in California, said he found the attacks puzzling.
