The real battle over the confirmation of Clarence Thomas was joined many years ago with the nomination of Robert Bork , but the roots of the struggle go back even farther to the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 . This country is in the middle of a historic political turning. The voters gave him a mandate but the losers overturned the results of the election by engineering Bork 's rejection . This time Washington 's Democrats tried to arrange a national referendum on sexual harassment thinking this would defeat Thomas . But by every measure available the voters gave Thomas landslide support and Thomas is the first Justice to sit on the Supreme Court with a popular mandate .
The real battle over the confirmation of Clarence Thomas was joined many years ago with the nomination of Robert Bork , but the roots of the struggle go back even farther to the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 . The voters gave him a mandate but the losers overturned the results of the election by engineering Bork 's rejection . This time Washington 's Democrats tried to arrange a national referendum on sexual harassment thinking this would defeat Thomas . But by every measure available the voters gave Thomas landslide support and Thomas is the first Justice to sit on the Supreme Court with a popular mandate .