bingo. Obama is an ideologue as much as the Tea Party.There's more than one way to look at it. Obama could surprise everyone [including the voters] by nominating an actual moderate instead of a 'check the box' leftist minority who thinks animals have constitutional rights or some bat crazy shit. If he were to do that, yes, the electorate would have a right to be pissed at republicans for dragging it out.
But if Obama puts up another leftist ideologue and the republicans vote him or her without a fight, then the voters will be pissed at the republicans. Because we all know stacking the court is dirty little game that conflicts with the separation of powers.
There is zero chance he will put up a moderate so its going to get interesting.
Nobody does moderates -we have to have hyper-partisan warfare because...well we just do..