The fight over judges seems to me like the earlier fight over money in politics. We have a similar situation where once people didn't care that much, but now they do. It seems to me that the change in attitude is caused by a change in power. As long as politics didn't matter all that much to one's daily life, there wasn't that much money involved. But as the federal government changed into a 500 lb gorilla that touched everyone's daily life, and every business, money came pouring in. And trying to stop the money flow without changing the power structure is like trying to repeal gravity.
And I see the same thing in the fight over judges. The real issue is that all of a sudden judges matter. They aren't just a bunch of boring old guys in black robes; they are running school districts, defining the meaning of is, involved in elections, ultimately mandating goodness and/or evil. Is abortion really a constitutional right? Only as long as 5 particular judges say so. Can minors and the mentally deficient be executed? That isn't a concern of the governed, nor of their representatives in the legislature, that's a decision for judges. On and on it goes. And so now the fight is on because it's something worth fighting about.
