Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said in a Thursday news conference to rally support for Southwick that the nominating process reminded him of the children’s game “Mad Libs."

“The opposition, when a nominee [they dislike] gets sent up, they just fill in the blanks,” Perkins said. “If they want to stop somebody, they just throw out the word ‘homophobe’ or ‘racist.’”

After civil rights groups publicized the two opinions that they claim prove Southwick unfit for the job, black Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) said he would oppose Southwick.p> Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.) is claiming he didn’t have enough information about Southwick at the time he supported him in the initial vote. Durbin went to the Senate floor Wednesday morning and said that he “came to the Southwick nomination with no advanced knowledge of the man or anything he had done.”

Judiciary member Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) said, “It appears--and I’m not going to go into all the details--[Democrats] want to kill this nomination in committee. They only have a slight one vote majority in the Senate.”

The Democrats on the committee also have a slim, one seat advantage over the Republicans.

“This is a really heavy-handed power play, there’s no doubt,” Sessions said.

Leahy has said he will call for a full committee vote on Southwick as soon as Mississippi Republican senators Thad Cochran and Trent Lott indicate they would like one. Republicans have made requests in recent weeks to vote to allow more time to increase other senators’ support of Southwick.