On the opening day of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Democrats seemed to want to avoid talking about nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Evidently, polling showed Democrats that their scorched-earth tactics against Brett Kavanaugh backfired in the 2018 Senate races. And they got the memo that the attacks on Barrett’s religious beliefs that they deployed during her appellate court confirmation hearings were likely to go over about as well as a Yankees parade in South Boston. Furthermore, they cannot question the credentials of Barrett, who is widely respected by lawyers regardless of their ideology and earned the American Bar Association’s highest “well qualified” rating.