Oh, That Explains It...

In the Wall Street Journal, Tom Goldstein explains the White House strategy as it pushes its Supreme Court shortlist:

"The process itself is a signal about the things that they value," he said. "There are three or four very serious people and other dark-horse candidates who are being discussed in part because they have a constituency."

Mr. Goldstein added that the White House was also sending a signal by not floating the names of any of the most liberal potential candidates. "They don't want to give red meat to the other side," he said.

But it may still seem hard to understand the presence of Sidney Thomas from Billings, Montana. Happily, the Journal explains:

[A friend] said the judge was a fund-raiser for a local public-radio station before his appointment to the court and that on occasion he went on the air with other local attorneys to drum up support.