I think this is a pretty good pick..
He is solid judicial Conservative. Many on the right confuse a judicial conservative with a political conservative. The CJ is a judicial conservative and I suspect he is pleased with this nominee. Roberts has repeatedly expressed his view that the Congress and not the Courts should deal with the divisive social issues of the day.
A CJ wants to put an imprint on the SC. While Kennedy was on the bench Roberts, in many cases, took a back seat to the more tenured Judge. I suspect we will see the "swing" vote shift back to the CJ where it has traditionally resided.
The Roberts Court, with the Kavanaugh nomination, is after all these years, just starting. I suspect many on the right and the left seeking an activist Court to impose a national standard for the social issues will be repeatedly disappointed in the future by the decisions of the Roberts Court. Those holding what was once considered a "Conservative" belief that those issues should be left up to the states will be in agreement.
I'd predict with the addition of Gorsich and Kavanaugh to the Court, many of the cases dealing with social issues will not make it past
cert (where the SC decides the cases to hear in the upcoming term). The upside to that IMO is that the SC will return to its traditional role of interpreting the Constitution. The downside, if you are an Congress critter, is that you will be expected to do the job you were elected to...