If Scalia's main role was to turn back the clock to some imagined era of purity, moral wholesomeness, and American greatness, the hands of judicial time are now frozen in the present moment. The court has a busy calendar this term, with decisions on abortion, contraception, union rights, affirmative action, and immigration on the docket. The court will be deadlocked on these cases.
This could not have come at a worse time for Republicans, who are already in chaos (Donald Trump has taken advantage of that fact). There's a reason that Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said that any Obama nominee was DOA, and that the new president should fill the vacancy. He spoke up even before Scalia's body had been removed from the hotel room where he died. McConnell knows that nobody like Scalia will get the job. By that I mean such a masterful, magical conjurer of illusions.
Constitutional originalists are always the first people to ignore the document itself; it's abundantly clear that the president nominates Supreme Court justices and the Senate votes to approve them. There is no exception stated for presidents who still have a year to serve. I think Obama will be clever and send over a nominee whom this Senate has already approved for a lower court posting, making it more difficult for them to block the person.
Whatever happens with Obama's nominee(s), Supreme Court appointments now become a central issue in the presidential election. Typically, appointments to the court are not among the reasons people vote for a candidate. This is now front and center, where it belongs. There are several elderly judges; the next president may get to make three or more appointments, who may serve for decades. Supreme Court justices, who are appointed for life, are the single most important legacy of any president.
Remember that Scalia was part of Reagan's legacy, set in motion by voters in the 1980 election, who were swayed by the Iranian hostage crisis. Though nobody knew this at the time, the Reagan campaign essentially bribed the evil, radical Iranian militants to keep the hostages in captivity just a little longer. He did this by promising them all the weapons they wanted for their war against our then-friend Saddam Hussein of Iraq (while campaigning on a "no arms for hostages" platform). Carter looked ineffective, and Reagan and Bush "won" the 1980 election, from which Scalia was a hangover.
My observation is that what we call modern conservatism is really a form of illusionism. First of all, they never get into office legitimately. Let's do a brief recap of recent Republican history. Nixon won in 1968 with a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war. That turned out to be bombing Cambodia and Laos, extending the war five more years.
Nixon won in 1972 due to the activities of CREEP (the Committee to Re-Elect the President) aka the Watergate criminal enterprise. He resigned just before Republicans had him step out onto the gallows of an impeachment trial in the Senate. Many in his administration were convicted of crimes. Nixon was succeeded by Gerald Ford, who was only an elected congressman. His real credential was having served on the Warren Commission, which whitewashed the then-recent murder of John F. Kennedy.
When Republicans came to power in 1980, they gained their advantage thanks to the shams associated with the Iranian hostage crisis. They then diverted the profits from weapons sales to the Iranians to the Contras in Nicaragua; that whole program became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan and Bush held the White House for 12 years, till early 1993.
When next Republicans came to power, it was the result of the divided Bush/Gore election of 2000. Gore got more actual votes by real-life citizens, though thanks to the Supreme Court majority led by Scalia, the recount was stopped and Bush and Cheney got to take office. I'm not sure how anyone can keep a straight face while calling this democracy.
We get to live with the legacies of these people for decades. This includes someone who could write this and be taken seriously:
"Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as 'discrimination' which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession's anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously 'mainstream.'"