While there <i>is</i> a tendency to replace like with like, that&#x27;s because Supreme Court justices usually time their retirements to coincide with presidencies that share their views.<p>In this case, I doubt it applies. In theory Obama could pick a nominee closer to the center to avoid a tiresome confirmation battle, but I suspect there&#x27;s a bigger bang for the buck in nominating fairly left-wing candidates and making the Republican Senate choose between looking obstructionist to the general public or looking weak to their base.