He spent 18 years as a senator on the Judiciary Committee, the last six as the Republican whip and No. 2 in leadership. Now his lobbying clients include a group already spending millions to push the federal courts hard right. His big gig on the side is rooting out perceived liberal bias on social media.

If Jon Kyl does not have the ideal background for successfully shepherding a Supreme Court nominee through this Senate, perhaps no one does.

One question is how much any single supporting player — even someone with his depth of experience and breadth of network — can do to influence what’s poised to become the most intense, expensive, consequential and nationally galvanizing confirmation battle in decades.

Part of the answer lies in defining expectations for the “chief sherpa,” the universally adopted but totally informal title for the volunteer job Kyl has signed on to for the next several months. Like the Tibetans who assist climbers up the bewildering and onerous topography of the Himalayas, a confirmation sherpa is supposed to maximize a nominee’s prospects for successfully navigating the confounding and wearisome passage through the Capitol.

Brett Kavanaugh knows one version of the drill, having endured almost three years of senatorial delay and dispute before securing confirmation in 2006 to his current position, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.