Rehnquist's Legacy

There was a lot of speculation last year, and earlier this year, about why Chief Justice Rehnquist didn't retire now that a Republican was in office. One of the arguments suggested that Rehnquist was not finished securing his legacy, that he saw a number of controversial and unfinished issues that he wanted to have a role in.

Well reasonable people can differ, but I'd say Rehnquist must be pretty damned disappointed. He lost in Lawrence v. Texas, he lost in Grutter v. Bollinger, and he lost today in McConnell v. FEC. Somehow Rehnquist has, after 17 years as Chief Justice, managed to position himself in the minority on the biggest cases of his last couple terms. I even thought he'd vote in the majority in Lawrence, so sure was I that Rehnquist couldn't possibly want to exit the court in the minority on that case. So what can we gather? Perhaps Rehnquist doesn't care about being in the minority, or doesn't care about this so-called "legacy." Maybe he views his legacy in terms of jurisprudential consistency rather than "winning cases." Or perhaps he has just badly misjudged the leanings of his court on these issues.