Halloween got an early, scary start for progressives, soon after dawn rather than dusk, when President George W. Bush introduced Samuel A. Alito, 55, as his latest nominee to the Supreme Court.

Some have called the nominee “Scalito” because his judicial views so closely mirror those of Justice Antonin Scalia, though his written opinions tend to be dry, and lacking in Scalia’s gratuitous personal attacks.

If previous nominee Harriet Miers was a judicial blank slate, Alito is the polar opposite, with a 15-year record on the federal bench. He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, based in Philadelphia, by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

A graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School, Alito worked in the office of the Solicitor General at the Justice Department under Ronald Reagan. That office is the government’s lawyer in appealing cases to the Supreme Court. Alito later was appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey by Reagan.

The nomination pleased social conservatives, who long have had Alito on their short list of preferred nominees to the court because of his rulings on abortion and church-state relations. Alito’s nomination may help repair recent rifts between the president and his conservative base.

However, the same factors that please conservatives make liberals see red.

They are likely to focus on the 1991 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The Pennsylvania law in question would have imposed a 24-hour waiting period on obtaining an abortion, required parental consent for a minor, and mandated informing the woman of the dangers of and alternatives to abortion.

Alito also would have required a woman to get her husband’s permission before getting an abortion. He argued that was not an unreasonable burden for the Legislature to place upon the woman.

But on appeal, a majority of the Supreme Court disagreed. Sandra Day O’Connor, the justice whom Alito would replace, wrote that the provision requiring spousal notification “will impose a substantial obstacle” upon women.

O’Connor said that, overall, the law “embodies a view of marriage consonant with the common-law status of married women, but repugnant to our present understanding of marriage and of the nature of the rights secured by the Constitution. Women do not lose their constitutionally protected liberty when they marry.”

The nomination has set up a clash between ideological extremes of the left and the right in the confirmation process, a fight that both sides have been waiting to engage in for months.

Even prior to the nomination, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, had suggested that Alito would be among the nominees that run the risk of a Democratic filibuster. Senate rules require 60 votes to close off debate.

The most likely timeline for action envisions Senate Judiciary Committee hearings beginning before Christmas with a vote by the full Senate sometime in January.

“The giddy salivation of anti-gay activists over their preferred nominee should disturb fair-minded Americans,” said Eric Stern, executive director of National Stonewall Democrats. He urged a “fair and thorough investigation” into Alito’s judicial record.

“Alito’s record on Congress’ power to protect Americans and a woman’s right to choose give us a level of understanding as to why he was the far right’s choice,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “Our Constitution does not belong to one narrow ideology; it belongs to all of us.”

“Judge Alito’s track record on reproductive freedom, enforcement of civil rights and federalism raises potential ‘red flags,’” said Lambda Legal’s Jon Davidson. “In 2001, Judge Alito authored a decision in Saxe v. State that declared unconstitutional a public school district policy that prohibited harassment against students because of their sexual orientation or other characteristics.”

Davidson said the policy was enacted because harassment can negatively affect a student’s learning. But Alito found it unconstitutional because it could cover “simple acts of teasing and name-calling.”