The single most important reason for Obama to be reelected

[Fla Dem]

67. But the question is; how long is forever?

All this is speculation, I'm just postulating that IF, and that's a mighty big IF, Romney is elected president, and then re-elected, by the time he is in his 8th year, Scalia will be 84 (if he lives that long). If I was thinking long term strategy, I would think at best Scalia would have 6 years left in him. Replace him in the last year of a Rethugs term, with a 50 or so year old and you've got that slot occupied for the next 20-30 years. Why leave a SCJ who is 84 (in 8 years) in office, who could die, get ill or otherwise become incapacitated within a short amount of time, when you have the opportunity to replace him with a judge who will be around a heck of a lot longer. And yes, no nominee is a guarantee, and I would guess if the "powers that be" felt they had a hostile congress, they would not push for Scalia to step down. But I do believe there are powerful forces in the RW world who can influence even supreme court justices, and if those powers thought they could replace Scalia with a younger model, as ideologically to the right as Scalia, they would do it in a heartbeat.