ABSTRACT
"Excellence, diversity, and moderation" —these were the criteria one Democratic senator and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee advised President George W. Bush to look for, in his first opportunity to name a new Supreme Court justice. This chapter focuses on the calculus of descriptive variables that a president must negotiate in selecting his judicial nominees. It discusses the political, legal, professional, personal, and demographic variables with respect to the candidates for nomination. The chapter addresses the historical development of this variable matrix, explaining when and why certain variables rose to prominence in the presidential nomination equation. It explores the presidential choices and their consequences, in terms of potential political costs or payoffs. The chapter also focuses on how a president may use candidate qualifications to reduce informational uncertainty about the future on-the-bench performance of his/her prospective nominees. Presidents, for sure, seek those diversity candidates whose experiences, personal and professional, align them with presidential ideology.
