The Senate will recess tomorrow with no action on the Estrada nomination. Without at least the threat of keeping the Senate in session and forcing the Democrats to actually filibuster, there is nothing to compel weak Senators from caving in and agreeing to a vote on the nominee. The genius of Leahy's strategy has been to make the issue the non-cooperation of the White House with Democratic requests for background memos drafted by Estrada, rather than his ideological views. The White House has shown no signs of compromising (why would they, when they not shown any willingness to share other communications within the executive branch), so the nomination is close to death. Estrada was a relatively unknown pick, so the threat of a filibuster will be even greater the next time, when it's someone like Pickering (or better yet, a Supreme Court nominee).