Call Me Crazy But

[Skill and Chance]

Anyone else think Kennedy retires on Monday?  He presumably would want a situation where the president has to get his replacement nominee through an opposition-controlled senate, and this could quite conceivably be the last chance at that until at least 2021.

Of course, the GOP could try to leave it open until 2017, but they probably couldn't take the heat with SSM now on the line and Obama nominating a moderate non-white male R like Sandoval or Susan Collins.

[Skill and Chance]

I don't think Sandoval would accept a SCOTUS nomination now, he likes being Governor. Perhaps he would closer to the end of his term, say mid-2017 or so, but definitely not now. And why would Kennedy require that his replacement be voted on by a Senate of the opposite party of the president?

Well, it would be his only real hope of getting a replacement who had similar views both on social issues and on the commerce clause. 

I think I agree re: Sandoval.  Collins would be the go-to nominee if a D president needs to confirm someone to a seat vacated by an R appointee.  There would be additional pressure due to the tradition of confirming fellow senators and it would also give them a lean D special election.  I think an R president would try the same thing with someone like Heitkamp if it was Ginsburg's seat and a D senate.