Those powers of persuasion in forging consensus — a quality Mr. Obama has told his staff he would like to see in a nominee — have been evident on the appeals court, the judge's supporters say.
Perhaps just as valuable, he knows what it's like to be a nominee putting on a brave face for the cameras.
Though she expressed concern about Sanders' ability to win the general election against a nominee like the Florida senator Marco Rubio, she again returned to likability over electability.
This is what it looks like when Obama proposes a nominee for a place in his own cabinet, who won't be on the job any longer than he is, and who is a picture of moderation.
His comments in a luncheon at the Washington bureau of The New York Times suggested that a nominee like Mr. McConnell might not be opposed simply on ideological grounds.
"Don't settle for someone who can, quote, win — if by winning we have a Pyrrhic victory," he told the crowd early Thursday morning, dismissively ticking through traits that he thinks are overrated in a nominee, like being moderate and having mass appeal.
The goal should not be blind obstructionism of the kind that would push away a nominee like Haley; rather, it should be to communicate, if only for the record, that lines must be drawn, and that Sessions, who was unconfirmable as a federal judge in 1986, crosses them.
The last two presidents who were fervently hated, Richard Nixon and Mr. Clinton, both won two terms; today's liberal disgust could do the same for Mr. Bush by leading to a nominee like Mr. Dean, who warms the hearts of the party's core but leaves others cold.
Do you really want a nominee like that?
