To refresh our memories: Obama's short lists

[femmocrat]

Short list[edit] 2010: (Kagan appointment)
Before the announcement, the White House had been preparing for another possible Supreme Court vacancy, with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responding to speculation about a possible Stevens retirement by saying "We'll be ready."[39] After Stevens announced his retirement, an anonymous White House official said that about ten people were under consideration.[37] The leading contenders to replace Stevens were said to include Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Pamela Wood and Solicitor General Elena Kagan, both of whom were interviewed for the David Souter vacancy, and D.C. Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland, who was also considered for the Souter vacancy.[37] Others mentioned include Ninth Circuit Judge Sidney Runyan Thomas, former Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.[40]

Short list[edit] 2009: (Sotomayor appointment)
Obama began the process of identifying potential Supreme Court nominees shortly after his election in 2008, before a Supreme Court vacancy was actually known.[28] White House Counsel Greg Craig helped assemble an early list of possible names.[28] Once the White House had learned of Souter's plans to retire, two members of the Vice President's staff, Chief of Staff Ron Klain and Counsel Cynthia Hogan, ran the daily operations of the selection process.[28]

Within a week of Souter's announcement the White House had formalized its short list of candidates to replace Souter, with Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Second Circuit, Judge Diane Pamela Wood of the Seventh Circuit, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan reportedly leading contenders for the nomination.[29] Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm were also reportedly on the short list of candidates under serious consideration by the White House.[30] Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears of the Georgia Supreme Court, Judge Merrick B. Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Judge Ruben Castillo of the Federal District Court for the Northern District in Illinois were also on the final list of nine candidates.[31]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_Supreme_Court_candidates

[DonCoquixote]

1. godwin Liu

would make their heads explode
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwin_Liu

[femmocrat]

2. I found this article about potential nominees: These are the top three they mentioned:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-supreme-court-farm-team

Sri Srinivasan, age forty-seven, D.C. Circuit. As I’ve noted before, Srinivasan is the front-runner. Like Sotomayor, Srinivasan has a great (and marketable) American story. The child of immigrants from India, Srinivasan grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, earned a J.D./M.B.A. from Stanford, and clerked for a pair of Republican judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson III and Sandra Day O’Connor. As Obama’s deputy solicitor general, he argued twenty-five cases before the high court and then won confirmation to the D.C. Circuit last year by a vote of 97–0. Even in the malignant political atmosphere of the contemporary Senate, that margin might make him a safe pick for the Supreme Court. Would Obama nominate a man to replace Ginsburg, and reduce the number of women on the Court to two? Making history with the first Indian-American Justice might tempt him.

Paul Watford, age forty-six, Ninth Circuit. Watford, a former law clerk to Alex Kozinski (the well-regarded Republican chief judge of the Ninth Circuit) and to Ginsburg herself, served as a federal prosecutor and corporate lawyer in Los Angeles before his appointment to the Ninth Circuit, in 2012. Again, there is the potential problem of naming a man to replace Ginsburg (if she leaves), but choosing Watford, who is African-American and a Ginsburg clerk, might make the decision easier.

David Barron, age forty-six, nominated to the First Circuit. Barron served as acting assistant attorney general during the first two years of the Obama Administration and is now a professor at Harvard Law School. His clerkships were with Stephen Reinhardt (a liberal favorite on the Ninth Circuit) and Justice John Paul Stevens; he has many fans in the White House, though the appointment of a white male would offer few political benefits. Barron’s nomination to the First Circuit has been approved by the Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote, and he has apparently been promised a vote in the full Senate before the mid-term elections. The invocation of the nuclear option—confirmation via a simple majority rather than the three-fifths vote formerly required to overcome a filibuster—should guarantee his appointment, which is obligatory if he is to be a Supreme Court nominee down the line.

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IMO, Obama will go with a highly-qualified nominee rather than a political one. Speculation about Biden, Hillary, Kerry, etc. is just wishful thinking.