Yeah if the leak came from the right in hopes of nailing down the four conservatives who had sided with Alito in the original vote, there was some pretty insulated if partisan bubble-thought going on there.
There was no way the Rs would have wanted overturn of Roe v Wade to become an issue to compete with their laundry list of anti-Biden screeds during campaigns for the 2022 midterm elections.
The Republican Party's plan was to go with Trump's candidates where he'd made endorsements if it looked like his picks could win, and otherwise slam Biden on the economy, deal in generalities about lefties being socialists and soft on immigration, street crime and yada yada... with "culture wars" left to the likes of Tucker Carlson, who pegs away at that all the time anyway, so the GOP hoped he could just be counted on to keep the base riled up enough to at least remember to check their voter registrations.
In other words "hot button" issues were to be subsumed in local campaigns to "how's your wallet doing with Biden at the helm?" but now the only topic is Roe v Wade and related spinoffs like "did Trump's court picks lie to US Senators during their confirmation hearings?".
John Roberts must be ready to tear out his hair, especially if the justices had decided --since that first draft-- to narrow the opinion and leave Roe v Wade dangling at cliffside for awhile yet.
I believe that Roberts will have tried to persuade one or more of the Trump-picked justices to join him in voting to do exactly that. If he was successful, who knows whether the leak of the draft will now cause another rethinking of the case and related final opinions.
