Usually when politicians float a bunch of names for a key plum pick--say a selection for Vice President--the smart thing is to give as many people as possible their 15 minutes of fame on the national stage.
Both parties do it all the time. Even if you're not selecting someone to a prestigious job they're seeking, the consolation prize is that they're given the gravitas and flattery that comes with having appeared to be a finalist.
But when Donald Trump floated a long list of potential Supreme Court nominees for the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg--and then brought it down to about five finalists--he may have made a terrible political mistake in raising the expectations of the Cuban-American community by tantalizing it by having dangled the name of Judge Barbara Lagoa.
Now that it appears Lagoa won't be his selection--it's widely reported that he's going with the most reliably anti-choice and otherwise extremist Judge Amy Coney Barrett, he may have screwed the pooch in Florida.
Deflated Lagoa backers probably will keep their heads down rather than criticize the choice of Barrett. They won't want to give Democrats fodder, and certainly wouldn't welcome a negative touchdown of Trump's Twitter tornado.
But here are some of the Tweets showing that Trump had raised expectations for Lagoa:
https://twitter.com/McClatchyDC/status/13088778472...
https://twitter.com/globalistreason/status/1309613...
https://twitter.com/Barnes_Law/status/130960833560...
https://twitter.com/GamebredFighter/status/1308203...
https://twitter.com/KellyAlspals/status/1309617134...
Whether this hurts Trump in Florida (and Arizona) remains to be seen.
But it ain't helping.