Rehnquist will retire soon. Then Bush nominates his pick for CJ.
IF (big "if", probably not) Bush were to nominate Scalia or Thomas to the CJ post, an Associate Justice place opens up, and either Gonzalez (probably) or an appeals-court judge goes in.
Based on the signals so far, it sounds like Bush is going to stiff the sitting AJ's and nominate his houseboy for the CJ slot. That would be breathtakingly bad judgment, but there's a precedent.
In two mayoral races in Houston, Manor Bush openly backed a Cuban-American GOP candidate, and they did so in a very conspicuous manner that I thought actually weakened the candidate himself, in order to push the point that the Bush family is Hispanic-friendly. In so doing they showed bad judgment -- bad for him -- but sacrificed his interest to get their own message out. Bush will do the same thing he's done before, and push a weak nominee and accept criticism for it, in order to be seen as promoting the interests of Hispanics, especially illegal aliens. It's you and me, pal, you work cheap and I am very loyal to you! I am a good employer! That's the message , and he'll even sacrifice a Supreme Court nomination -- even let the nomination go down in flames and wind up having to accept another Kennedy to get someone confirmed, in order to take this chance to push the Bush message out in the most dramatic way possible.
That's why he'll nominate Gonzales to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Because even if the nomination fails -- Bush tried. In fact, it might even be better if it does fail......that way he gets credit in the Hispanic community, and then he gets to go back and nominate as his second choice someone who, except for Karl Rove's election calculus, would have been his first choice -- a "moderate" Chamber-of-Commerce Republican, an "economic conservative" who'll wind up voting like Kennedy or O'Connor.
You game on that bet?
Yup, I'm in. Here's my prediction. It'll be Emilio Garza or Miguel Estrada. I'm leaning toward Garza because even though he's written very critically on Roe, he's a Marine which means he'll be tough to demonize and he'll have steel balls.