Have Democrats made any progress in their head-on attacks against Brett Kavanaugh? The Hill hasn’t seen much evidence of it, at least not where it matters. Despite throwing the kitchen sink at Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, there is zero evidence that any of their arguments have changed the minds of Republicans who can confirm him on a straight party-line vote, if need be:

Democrats are struggling to find an opening in their fight to sink Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.

They can’t block the nominee on their own, but they’re under intense pressure from liberals to wage a full-scale attack against Kavanaugh as they try to sway the one or two Republicans needed to sink President Trump’s pick and score a major victory heading into the midterm elections. …

Still, none of the Democratic attacks have gained much traction with Republicans.

The sliding focus of the attacks is a dead giveaway here. It started with abortion, as Democrats usually do in judicial-confirmation fights, but it turned out that Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are making it clear that they’re not going to apply that litmus test to Kavanaugh. As long as Kavanaugh demonstrates enough “impartial” judgment, Collins says, she’ll be satisfied. Furthermore, Collins sounds annoyed by Democratic attempts to bully her in general over the vote:

“There is a rigorous campaign underway right now in Maine. There’s like a $3 million media buy, which is huge in my state,” Collins said. “So you can’t turn on the television or the radio or go on the internet without seeing ads. But those kinds of things are not going to have an influence on my vote.”

After that their focus shifted to health care, but with even less success. Apart from protecting Planned Parenthood funding, Collins and Murkowski aren’t fans of ObamaCare, and Rand Paul wants it rooted out lock, stock, and barrel. Instead, they’ve tried to paint Kavanaugh as a 4th Amendment opponent, a fan of unbridled executive power (which doesn’t seem to bother them with Democratic nominees), a dirty rotten leaker, and evil incarnate.

Small wonder it hasn’t had much impact. Shrieking hysteria rarely does. As Morrissey’s Axiom on Dating and Politics predicts, “Desperation is not an aphrodisiac.” The more they throw at Kavanaugh, the more it becomes apparent that Democrats don’t really have a firm argument against him. And the longer this goes on, the better prepared Kavanaugh will be to demonstrate it in his confirmation hearing.