Suppose the upcoming confirmation hearings indicate that Sonia Sotomayor is qualified and has no ethical problems.  Do you think U.S. Senators would be justified or unjustified in voting against her if they disagree with her stance on current issues such as abortion or gun control?

Only 49 percent of people say this would be unjustified; 47 percent say it would be justified. By contrast, 54 percent of Americans said that an ideological vote against John Roberts would have been unjustified. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the full-court press against Sotomayor’s “wise Latina justice” statement and the spinning of the Ricci case have had an effect.

Notwithstanding her much-decried “wise Latina woman” claim, it turns out Sotomayor is no liberal activist hell-bent on replacing the Constitution’s equal protection clause with a new section mandating affirmative action, as some of the Republican criticism would suggest.

Instead, CRS reports, via Secrecy News: “Perhaps the most consistent characteristic of Judge Sotomayor’s approach as an appellate judge has been an adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis, i.e., the upholding of past judicial precedents.”

According to the nonpartisan research service, Sotomayor’s other prominent characteristics include “a careful application of particular facts at issue in a case and a dislike for situations in which the court might be seen as oversteping its judicial role.”

Hardly a judge who plans “to use her seat on the Supreme Court to advance liberal policy preferences,” as former Attorney General Ed Meese, who’s helping direct her critics, has suggested.