SCENARIOS: Obama could get Supreme Court pick soon

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery for pancreatic cancer on Thursday, raising the possibility that President Barack Obama might have to pick a successor if she leaves the court for health reasons. Here are some scenarios Obama might face:

*Judges serve lifetime appointments and Obama's pick could turn out to be one of his most enduring legacies. Analysts say he faces relatively favorable conditions for getting his candidate approved by the Senate.

* While past presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had to get their nominees through a Senate that was controlled by the opposite party, Obama's Democrats control at least 58 seats in the 100-seat chamber.

* Ginsburg is regarded as one of the court's more liberal members, giving conservatives less grounds to object if Obama were to name a liberal-leaning replacement because the court's ideological balance would not be affected.

* Obama could seek to moderate the court's increasingly conservative bent by nominating someone with stronger liberal views than Ginsburg.

"That's Obama's first big choice: Does he want to push hard to get a real liberal visionary onto the court?" said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Siegel.

* But even with a sympathetic Senate, a Supreme Court nomination is rarely a placid process. Justice Clarence Thomas complained of a "high tech lynching" in 1991 when he was accused of sexual harassment at his confirmation hearings.

More recently, the Senate nearly came to a standstill over a disagreement on how to handle judicial nominees.