WASHINGTON _ Only when Ilyse Hogue saw the spectacle with her own eyes did she realize the Democratic Party had a big problem.
Perched over an atrium one day in February, the president of the abortion rights group NARAL watched a mob of reporters _ she would later call it a "paparazzi scrum" _ move across the floor below her. They were giving the rock-star treatment to Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court, who was making the rounds in the spacious Hart Senate Office Building.
"It was like Prince was walking through the building, risen from the dead," said Hogue, who watched while standing next to a former co-worker.
The frustration building in the longtime liberal activist finally broke: She wanted to thwart Gorsuch's nomination, but the federal judge _ buffeted by good press and a sense of inevitability _ was barely facing any resistance from Democratic senators. A recent story had even mentioned how much Gorsuch loved puppies, she quipped.
So Hogue went home and wrote an email to a set of trusted advisers. Titled "Gorsuch Free Pass," it asked for a battle plan that could persuade Democratic senators to put up a fight.
The events put into motion that day worked better than Hogue _ or any other liberal activists _ could have hoped.
What once looked like an easy victory for Senate Republicans and Trump has become anything but, thanks to near-unanimous opposition from Senate Democrats. Members who praised the justice just a month earlier now say they not only won't vote him, but they also won't support a cloture vote to end a filibuster.
The credit or blame for that change sits squarely with Hogue and the Democrats' liberal activist wing, which through one-on-one persuasion and grass-roots mobilization convinced party leaders that they needed to muster maximum resistance.
Gorsuch is still expected to be confirmed this week, but not until the Senate GOP takes the unprecedented step of changing the rules to allow a simple majority of senators to confirm a justice.
Republicans will consider the confirmation of Gorsuch a major victory, no matter the method. But to activists like Hogue, getting Democrats to wage an all-out battle is a win in itself _ a sign the party cares about its grass-roots supporters and will stoke their energy from now until next year's midterm elections.
"This campaign has already been a success because we're having a real conversation, rather than just sleepwalking through confirmation," Hogue said.
The activist class's increasingly direct management of the Democratic Party didn't start with Gorsuch and it won't end there, either. Democrats' congressional leaders have looked to activists for guidance on everything from Cabinet confirmation fights to the GOP health care bill.
Even political decisions _ like the party's involvement in a U.S. House of Representatives special election in Georgia _ have been spearheaded by activists, who first started raising gobs of money for the de facto Democratic nominee, Jon Ossoff.
"I've never seen the Democratic Party as responsive to grass-roots activism as it is now," said Ben Wikler, the political director for MoveOn.org, a longtime hub of liberal advocacy.
Indeed, the party is doing what the base wants. But is that wise?
