Republicans would be foolish to waste any political capital on the nomination.
In most cases where people claim to possess empathy, they are really just projecting their emotions on others.
Basing judicial decisions on empathy leads to prejudicial decisions. After all it was judges empathizing with racists that led to the logically unsound Jim Crow in the Democratic South of a century ago.
http://blog.yintercept.com/2009/05/empathetic-v-conservativ e-judges.htmlRepublicans would have a hard time blocking the nomination, but they might be able to make a dent into the idiocy of creating a court system based on convoluted schemes of a community organizer.