After the 1956 convention, JFK was told by a friend that the Vice Presidency was now his for the asking in 1960. Kennedy grinned and said, “You know I’ve always been opposed to vice in all forms.” He’d already decided to go for the top spot.
The sooner Obama names (or hints at) a VP, the sooner Republicans can focus their research and resources on tearing that individual down.
With ten or so possible choices out there, Obama puts the Republicans to the burden of trying to research and prepare for attacks on all of them.
Supposedly it’s about 20. Although I think some of them, like John Edwards, are red herrings.
This and the “respectful distance from the Fall of Hillary” item are how it looks to me. The opposition isn’t going to wait until they have a name to do their research; they want to have something ready the moment the announcement is made. This way, without any idea of what’s coming, they have to spread themselves thin. Either they spend more money than they expected to, in order to have deeper research on all the viable names, or they keep the same bottom-line budget but reduce the per-name allocation and don’t get much done. Smart either way.
Just to throw them all a loop, I will contact the Obama people and volunteer myself as his VP.
He’ll carry California no matter what. I already contacted them about me… and I’m from Ohio!
Bah! Let’s put Georgia in play!
My qualifications:
I can spell potato
I am in an undisclosed location
I have never shot anyone in the face (in the face, mind you)
I will happily deride all nattering nabobs
I am keeping my dog, and I don’t care what anyone says about it
I can hold my own in a duel, if any of the cabinet members get out of line (Just because I haven’t shot anybody in the face, doesn’t mean I’m not willing.)
The investigative work will tie up a Republican dirty-tricks team for months.
Democratic National Convention is August 25-28th and the Republican National Convention is September 1-4th.
So why go early?
Just about the time the hoopla has started regarding Obama’s choice, a couple of days later the next hurrah will start about McCain’s choice.
That way, both sides can see just how quickly and nasty the other side will be about throwing mud at their VP choice. Talking heads will then be able to say, “Well, it is true that this VP candidate is yadayada, but the other VP candidate is also yadayada…”
Makes the eventually public vetting of the VP candidates on equal footing and neither will be open to scrutiny for a long period of time alone. It is harder to slam one candidate if you can immediately point out that the other candidate has equally dubious experience or background or voting record or whatever.
I’m pretty sure McCain will make his choice first. He’s had more time to think about it and the list of candidates, as far as we know, is not as large. Both of them have a range of options, but I think Obama’s is much larger.
From what we’ve seen of Obama’s sense of timing, it seems likely to me that he’s going to do it shortly after McCain does.
It seems that every time McCain gets the spotlight, oops, somehow it slips right back to Obama. We’ll get a couple days of coverage of McCain’s choice, and then we’ll spend three times as long on Obama’s, as crickets continue to chirp for McCain.
-Joe
An interesting perspective on the when of it.
A reasoned analysis follows.
But McCain doesn’t have to name his until the Repub convention, which comes second. I think McCain probably already has a pretty good idea who he’s going to pick, but he won’t announce until after the Dem convention specifically to steal the news cycle away from Obama as quickly as possible after what is sure to be a very widely seen event.
In fact, the latest rumor is this…