This is what my husband has been telling me all night. He doesn't think we'll ever get another conservative on the Court.
I have an informed hunch that all of this jockeying is intended to clear the way for Janice Rogers Brown to get the next open SCOTUS seat. That will likely be when Rehnquist retires. Brown is a bona fide Scalia-type conservative.
But we need more than one, we need three more.