It’s really going to come down to the wire, isn’t it? This morning’s calls from Donald Trump to a range of advisers and friends mainly focused on two candidates to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. The big question will be whether this is for real, or a headfake to build suspense and surprise for tonight:

Signaling he has not yet settled on his pick for the Supreme Court, President Trump on Monday morning worked the phones primarily seeking input about two judges who are apparently the finalists, Brett Kavanaugh and Thomas Hardiman, people familiar with the discussions said.

Mr. Trump appeared to be going back and forth between Judge Kavanaugh, the favorite of the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, and Judge Hardiman, whom the president’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a former colleague of Judge Hardiman’s, has pressed him to choose. …

Judge Barrett, the only woman under consideration, has the support of Sean Hannity, the Fox News host and close Trump ally, who played golf with the president in New Jersey on Sunday.

Mr. Kethledge also has supporters. But he has a comparatively thin record of judicial opinions, and some conservatives have voiced concerns that he could turn out to be similar to Justice David Souter, who was appointed to the court by President George H.W. Bush but sometimes sided with the court’s liberals. Mr. Kethledge’s rulings in an immigration case have brought criticism from conservatives like the commentator Ann Coulter. And Judge Hardiman, the first in his family to graduate from college, has the kind of personal story that appeals to many Trump supporters.

Let’s assume it’s not a headfake. Does this mean that these are the two final choices for Trump, or simply a test to see whether they should be eliminated from the finalist list? He may not feel as though he needs to get more info on Barrett and Kethledge, while Trump may really need to walk through the Bush- and Clinton-era issues with Kavanaugh and whether Hardiman is significant enough to be included. That’s not an unknown opinion outside the White House:

Hardiman is preferable to Kennedy, but not by much. https://t.co/XcEd8TIgQx

— David French (@DavidAFrench) July 9, 2018

However, everyone knows that Trump is a showman. What better way to stoke anticipation for The Big Reveal tonight than to throw a  last-minute change-up? He’s still making up his mind! There’s time to place bets! If nothing else, setting up a leak like this allows people to retain interest in the process and keep from guessing what’s going on. In a normal administration, the White House wouldn’t want to send this kind of signal of uncertainty about a nominee, but Trump is clearly not a slave to nuance.

Or perhaps it indicated that these are the two finalists. That would suggest that Hardiman has supplanted Kethledge as the confirmable choice, and Kavanaugh becomes the somewhat provocative choice, eclipsing Barrett. That’s a possibility, especially with Don McGahn in Kavanaugh’s corner, but these seem like the watered-down candidates for both strategies (while still being fine candidates in and of themselves). Kavanaugh adds in Rand Paul as another GOP wild card, and Hardiman doesn’t really add in anything that Kethledge can’t provide.

Since we’re making predictions, perhaps we all need to step up and lay our rhetorical money on the line for tonight’s big winner on Prime-Time Justice tonight. If you haven’t yet read Allahpundit’s analysis for why Amy Coney Barrett will get the nod, be sure to catch up to it now. He makes as good a case for Barrett as there is.

At the heart of that case, though, lies a big problem. Barrett might end up running afoul of his own caucus, specifically Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, at a point in time when Trump has no margin for error. That might put pressure on red-state Senate Democrats to vote in favor of Barrett, but it’s more likely to provide them political cover to vote against her. “She’s too radical even for Republicans,” will be the explanation, which means a Barrett choice makes it more likely for the effort to fail.

On top of that, Barrett — while being a fine candidate down the line — has little experience in appellate work, having just been confirmed to the appellate bench in November 2017. That means we might not yet know just how consistent she will be when it comes to settling big questions, and not just on pro-life issues. Those matter as well, as we discovered with Janus and other big decisions this term. Her lack of experience gives red-state Democrats — and disaffected Republicans — yet another excuse to take a pass on Trump’s pick.

The better political play would be to nominate the most reliable and bullet-proof candidate possible and dare everyone to vote against him. The best candidate for that would be Raymond Kethledge, followed closely by Hardiman. Kethledge has more than a decade on the appellate court, with a track record that suggests originalist stability. He has defended the personal right to bear arms under the Second Amendment (and is a hunter himself), backed enforcement of immigration laws in 111 of 116 decisions he reached, and furthermore comes from outside the Harvard/Yale elite. Kethledge hails from the Midwest, graduating from the University of Michigan, and so has an equally compelling life story as Hardiman. Kethledge’s intellectual chops are strong enough to come across as “Gorsuch 2.0,” a quality which Trump will no doubt prefer.

Finally, Kethledge will be seen as a serious choice in that same mode. Trump repeatedly hailed that quality in Gorsuch the first time, and I’d bet that he wants to be seen more as serious this time rather than go with a deliberate provocation. That’s especially true given the smaller margin for error this time around. Red-state Democrats will face a lot more heat for rejecting a serious appointment like Kethledge than they will for responding to a deliberate provocation. Leave red-state Democrats with no political cover at all, and they’ll either vote to confirm or torch their careers.

We’ll know for sure in seven hours, but I’ll place my bets on Kethledge. Whomever it is, let’s all remember that any of these four would be a lot better than having Hillary Clinton make her second appointment.

In case you missed this last week, EWTN profiled Kethledge last week and concludes that Kethledge might be more like Scalia 2.0. Which makes it all the more a shame if indeed he’s been dropped as a finalist.

Meet Judge Raymond #Kethledge, who is on President Trump's shortlist of #SCOTUS possibilities. As you'll see in this @EWTN report, his supporters say he shares the judicial outlook of Justice Scalia, is friends with Justice Gorsuch, and even wrote about Pope John Paul II. pic.twitter.com/Qg1NtZb6iy

— Jason Calvi (@JasonCalvi) July 5, 2018