After Tuesday's lengthy day of courtesy calls, Sotomayor has another ten meetings on the schedule today, sitting down with Senators Cardin, Graham, Gregg, Kohl, Mikulski, Murray, Schumer, Snowe, Whitehouse and Wyden.

As I figured, Sotomayor said nothing of note when reporters were around, not risking any type of verbal gaffe.

And predictably, she used Democratic Senators to fight back against charges that she is nothing more than a Hispanic Racist.

"The question is, will she follow the law? I'm convinced she will," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Some of the attacks made against her have been the most vicious I've ever seen," added Leahy, an observation that probably wouldn't pass muster with a number of Republicans.

Republicans meanwhile did sort of a two step on Sotomayor, trying on one foot to look stern and tough while on the other not endorsing attacks by Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich that have branded the nominee as a "racist."

Today the GOP will push back against the idea of quick hearings for Sotomayor, which Democrats say might be needed because of attacks on the New York judge.

Republicans have talked about hearings in September, while Democrats are making noise about confirmation hearings in July.

In a sense, these kind of process arguments are exactly what the Democrats would rather be talking about right now, rather than seeing the GOP take shots at Judge Sotomayor on the merits of her record, both on and off the bench.

Still, the GOP has done a pretty good job of keeping several lines of inquiry open on Sotomayor, and should reap the benefits of that when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the New Haven white firefighter case later this month.

That doesn't mean they are going to stop this nominee, but they haven't been blown out of the water, either.