Confirmation Bear Traps

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Ashcroft defenders say it was this decision that swung moderate Republicans against White and led them to reject him for the federal court. They dispute the charge that Ashcroft is a racist, noting that as Missouri Governor he appointed the first African-American judge to the court of appeals and signed into law the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. But he also accepted an honorary degree in 1999 from Bob Jones University, which until recently forbade interracial dating, and defended Confederate leaders as "patriots" in Southern Partisan magazine, a pro-Confederacy publication that he praised for helping "set the record straight."

It is not only civil rights groups that have Ashcroft in their sights. He has always been an ardent abortion foe, so abortion-rights groups view his nomination as "akin to the appointment of George Wallace to be Attorney General in the 1960s," says Rosemary Dempsey, Washington director of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. In 1998 Ashcroft sponsored a constitutional amendment to outlaw all abortions except those needed to save the life of the mother. Bush allows for exceptions in cases of rape or incest, but Ashcroft didn't. His proposal defined human life as beginning at fertilization, which women's groups say could have meant that not only abortion but also birth-control pills and IUDs, which prevent development of a fertilized egg, would be illegal. "Bush couldn't have chosen anyone more hostile, more dangerous," says Kate Michelman, head of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, "more devoted to taking Roe v. Wade down."

NARAL and Planned Parenthood both mounted unprecedented get-out-the-vote efforts in last year's election. Their state-of-the-art e-mail and phone-bank techniques will now be turned to stopping Ashcroft. But Ashcroft has broad and deep support among social conservatives. More than 180 groups, led by the Free Congress Foundation, have signed on to support him with grass-roots lobbying. Privately, some Democrats say it's useful to rough up Ashcroft, even if just to scare Bush into picking more moderate judges or Justices --and to preclude the chance that Ashcroft might someday land on the Supreme Court. "That's where the endgame is," says Ohio Republican Mike DeWine. "John will be used for the next battle, which is the judgeships."

In some ways, Linda Chavez is more vulnerable than Ashcroft. She doesn't enjoy the professional courtesy that Ashcroft does as a former Senator, and for the moment, activists put her as their No. 2 target. In fact, some Republicans were surprised at Bush's choice for the Labor Department, because it could come at such high cost. That Chavez is a Hispanic woman may not help Bush if many Hispanics and women object to her views. "For the life of me, that doesn't make any sense," says an adviser to the Bush campaign. "She is hated by the constituency they were trying to court with her selection." Chavez, a native New Mexican who does not speak a word of Spanish, is the lead ax wielder against bilingual education.