If you've been following the nomination news as closely as NationalJournal.com, you may have noticed that the lawyer-bloggers over at SCOTUSblog have been analyzing Sonia Sotomayor's opinions since May 15. You can find those posts those posts here and here and here and here and here and finally, posted at 7:34 a.m. yesterday, here.

So why did SCOTUSblog decide to focus on Sotomayor substantially more than other front-runners such as Elena Kagan or Diane Wood?

According to Tom Goldstein, founder of the blog and partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld, Sotomayor always "seemed like the logical political choice." Predictions like this -- he said he did a similar analysis of John Roberts leading up to his nomination in 2005 -- aren't "that complicated."

One last-minute assurance Goldstein had came from comments Obama made over the weekend that he was looking for a judge who had more than "ivory tower learning."

"It seemed to me that it was going to be really hard to explain" Kagan and Wood in light of that comment, Goldstein said. "They're really smart and good people, but their strengths don't come from personal experiences. The president was signaling that he was headed in the direction of Sotomayor."

It wasn't smooth sailing the whole time. Soon after Goldstein published his last post about Sotomayor early Tuesday morning effectively predicting wholeheartedly that she was going to be the pick, he got an e-mail saying the rumored pick was 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ann Williams. His initial thought? "I'm an idiot." Not in the end.