Kamala Harris and Cory Booker audition for 2020 at Kavanaugh hearings

Sept. 08--Brett Kavanaugh's high-stakes Supreme Court confirmation hearing offered voters an early preview of what a 2020 Democratic primary could look like, with Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey vying dramatically to make the strongest case against the Trump nominee.

The two potential presidential contenders captured the spotlight with tough questions and no-holds-barred protest tactics. But as several of their biggest moments ended in anticlimactic flops, they left some observers wondering whether their performances were more grandstanding than groundbreaking.

"This was political theater," said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor. "But using the confirmation hearing as a political stage doesn't mean they weren't also genuinely trying to obtain information about his record."

Faced with a pivotal confirmation battle that could swing the court to the right for a generation, both threw out old-school norms of Senate decorum, with Harris leading her colleagues in interrupting proceedings to call for a delay and Booker vowing to risk his Senate seat to publicly release what he described as confidential documents about Kavanaugh's record.

The two senators -- who were both appointed to the Judiciary Committee just this year -- showcased different political styles that could be central to presidential campaigns. Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, zeroed in on Kavanaugh with the prosecutorial approach of a cross-examination, while Booker, a former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, framed his questions with oratory about race in America.

The senators also used the hearing as a fundraising opportunity, blasting out email appeals for donations to their supporters. Harris' campaign posted dozens of Facebook ads touting her fight against the judge.

Neither elicited any answers that appear likely to derail Kavanaugh's path to the high court. With 51 votes in the Senate, Republicans probably have the numbers they need to confirm Trump's nominee.

But over the last few days of 12-hour hearings, Harris and Booker stood out from an older generation of Democrats serving on the Judiciary Committee, said Ben LaBolt, a former spokesman for Barack Obama and a Democratic strategist in San Francisco.

"They have no use for the parochial, old-school rules of the Senate -- 'my dear friend from the state of Wyoming' is irrelevant here," LaBolt said. "This is about a potential Supreme Court justice who is going to take what was the moderate swing vote on the court and make it into a radically conservative one, so they're bringing the heat and the fight."

They each had their viral moments. Harris repeatedly questioned Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, on whether he had discussed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign with anyone working at the law firm of Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, which he denied.

"I think you're thinking of someone and you don't want to tell us," Harris said, with the exchange racking up millions of views on social media.

And in questioning Kavanaugh about his position on abortion laws, she asked him, "Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?"

"I'm not thinking of any right now, senator," Kavanaugh responded.

Booker sparred with Republicans on Thursday morning over his decision to release several confidential emails. He called it "the closest I'll probably ever have in my life to an 'I am Spartacus' moment," daring GOP leaders to expel him from the Senate.

Still, little came from their most notable exchanges: Harris never put forward any evidence that Kavanaugh discussed Mueller with someone at Kasowitz's firm, despite saying she had "reliable information" he did, and the documents Booker made public turned out not to have been confidential at all -- at least some were cleared for release earlier that morning.

The theatrics left Republicans rolling their eyes.

"What we had was a couple senators who hijacked these hearings for their personal benefit," said Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer and the vice president of the Republican National Lawyers Association. "The purpose of these hearings is advice and consent, not their presidential campaign ads."

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Some Democrats were also unimpressed. Michael Avenatti, the bombastic Los Angeles lawyer who's mused about running for president himself in 2020, questioned Booker and Harris' tactics, suggesting in a tweet that they had overplayed their hands on the confidential documents and Kasowitz line of questioning.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Harris and Booker failed to get many solid answers from Kavanaugh about his views. Under questioning from them, he declined to state his position on whether Supreme Court decisions legalizing same-sex marriage, allowing some use of race in college admissions, and striking down parts of the Voting Rights Act were correctly decided. Kavanaugh repeatedly cited the practice of past Supreme Court nominees not to talk about cases that could come before them.

But Kavanaugh's "non-answers were answers enough," argued LaBolt, with the judge's reticence suggesting to the American public that he was hiding his views and his record.

"Because of the toughness of the questions coming from (Harris and Booker), he really came across as less impressive and less prepared than other recent nominees," LaBolt said.

And the senators' dogged approach delighted many liberal viewers, even without a smoking gun.

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Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor and expert in judicial nominations, said that the tactics of Harris and Booker -- interrupting right away, releasing confidential documents -- were unusual in the history of Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

To be sure, past hearings have been contentious in other ways, from the failed confirmation process for judge Robert Bork to the sexual harassment allegations that nearly derailed Clarence Thomas' confirmation.

But Tobias pointed out that resistance has become the norm. In recent years, Republicans have also chipped away at bipartisan traditions, including Senate Republicans blocking Obama nominee Merrick Garland from getting any hearing in 2016 and eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees the following year.

"Being polite hasn't been working," he said. "It shouldn't be surprising that that's not what we see now."

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