Ross Douthat, in today’s NYT, attributes the intensity of the opposition to DeVos to typical Democratic interest group politics. As usual, this conclusion is partly, but not completely, true.
Douthat thinks the Democrats would be better served taking on other cabinet nominees who are either less competent or more dangerous to the country. In fact, however, the Democrats have opposed an unprecedented number of nominees, including Sessions and Tillerson. What makes DeVos different, other than her painfully obvious lack of qualifications and knowledge of her brief, is the concern expressed by GOP supporters of public schools. That gave the Democrats some reason to believe that DeVos could be defeated.
So yes, the grassroots opposition to DeVos was largely led by traditional Democratic interest groups behaving in their usual manner. But no, the Democrats in the Senate did not really treat her as a special case, and to the limited extent that they did, it was because she was uniquely vulnerable.