Alito's the new pick

With breathtaking speed (gee, do you think Smirky had this possibility in mind when he nominated Miers?), Smirky the Chimp pandered to his far-right base and nominated Samuel Alito for O'Connor's spot on the Supreme Court. The obvious mark against Alito (whom many are calling "Scalito", for his resemblance on matters ideological to current nutjob Justice Scalia) is that he is on record for believing that pregnant wives should be legally bound to notify their husbands that they are choosing to have an abortion. He is also on record as thinking that "Congress ha[s] no authority to regulate private gun possession", even when that refers to currently illegal machine guns. More troubling still, Alito "rejected as unconstitutional the provisions of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act allowing state employees to sue their states for failure to provide them with the leave mandated under the Act. His opinion shows that he does not consider "disparate impact"” on women to be a sufficient ground for finding discrimination."
The real question about this nominee, though, is, can the Democrats stop him from being confirmed? Can they convince enough moderate Republicans (if any really exist, which I doubt) that this guy is too far out there? And if not, can they at least rein in wayward (or simply ignorant) Democrats to successfully filibuster him and then secure enough Republicans to defeat the "nuclear option" that will be sure to follow?
We didn't know much about Roberts, and knew even less about Miers, so Dems had no sure footing on which to stand any oppositional ground. This guy, however, we know to be an activist judge hellbent on proscribing federal power from helping citizens. This guy is a clear and obvious danger to all of our rights. Alito must be defeated, or we all lose.