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Log inWho's No. 2? Obama Keeps Everybody Guessing.
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Who's No. 2? Obama Keeps Everybody Guessing.
by Outspoken on Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:46 pm
Who's No. 2? Obama Keeps Everybody Guessing.
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
This is Veep Week. That, in reality, is about all that anyone outside Sen. Barack Obama's inner, inner circle knows -- that sometime before next week the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will announce his running mate. Beyond that, the political world is in a zone of fevered speculation.
Nothing is certain, and one sign of how jittery everyone is about the timing and the choice came yesterday afternoon, when the gossipy Drudge Report posted an item that said, "Paper: Obama may announce VP in AM." That set off alarms in newsrooms across the country until Obama advisers shot it down -- although it was not clear exactly what they were shooting down, other than that the announcement would come early this morning.
As Obama completed his Hawaii vacation, there was a widespread assumption, based on nothing solid from the campaign, that he could make his announcement early this week and stage a multi-day rollout. Now, in a twist that goes against recent history, there are signs that Obama may wait to announce his choice until this weekend or just before in hopes of providing a big boost before the convention opens Monday in Denver.
In addition to giving some convention-eve energy to Obama's campaign, a late-in-the-week rollout would have another benefit in the eyes of his loyalists. It could help overshadow the other dominant story heading into Denver, which is the long-running drama over how Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and Clinton's supporters will handle themselves during the week.
An announcement late in the week suggests that the Obama campaign believes that, in an era of 24/7 coverage and increasingly shortened news cycles, sustaining interest in a vice presidential rollout has become increasingly difficult. Four years ago, the Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry, choreographed a five-day rollout of his choice of then-Sen. John Edwards. Media attention spans today are considerably shorter.
Obama could move whenever he's ready, but if he makes his announcement sooner than Friday, it would mean disrupting a schedule that is already set. He will be in Orlando on Tuesday for a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, an important event that he probably won't want to overshadow with a vice presidential pick. Then he heads to North Carolina and Virginia for a bus tour that runs into Thursday.
Obama is said to be operating with a list of five finalists, though there is no solid confirmation from his inner circle of who and how many are serious contenders.
One is believed to be Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was prepping for the job with a weekend trip overseas to Georgia, at the invitation of President Mikheil Saakashvili, to assess the situation there. His stock among those not in the know has risen sharply lately because of world events. How he is faring with the candidate is not known.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/18/AR2008081802691.html?wpisrc=newsletter
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
This is Veep Week. That, in reality, is about all that anyone outside Sen. Barack Obama's inner, inner circle knows -- that sometime before next week the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will announce his running mate. Beyond that, the political world is in a zone of fevered speculation.
Nothing is certain, and one sign of how jittery everyone is about the timing and the choice came yesterday afternoon, when the gossipy Drudge Report posted an item that said, "Paper: Obama may announce VP in AM." That set off alarms in newsrooms across the country until Obama advisers shot it down -- although it was not clear exactly what they were shooting down, other than that the announcement would come early this morning.
As Obama completed his Hawaii vacation, there was a widespread assumption, based on nothing solid from the campaign, that he could make his announcement early this week and stage a multi-day rollout. Now, in a twist that goes against recent history, there are signs that Obama may wait to announce his choice until this weekend or just before in hopes of providing a big boost before the convention opens Monday in Denver.
In addition to giving some convention-eve energy to Obama's campaign, a late-in-the-week rollout would have another benefit in the eyes of his loyalists. It could help overshadow the other dominant story heading into Denver, which is the long-running drama over how Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and Clinton's supporters will handle themselves during the week.
An announcement late in the week suggests that the Obama campaign believes that, in an era of 24/7 coverage and increasingly shortened news cycles, sustaining interest in a vice presidential rollout has become increasingly difficult. Four years ago, the Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry, choreographed a five-day rollout of his choice of then-Sen. John Edwards. Media attention spans today are considerably shorter.
Obama could move whenever he's ready, but if he makes his announcement sooner than Friday, it would mean disrupting a schedule that is already set. He will be in Orlando on Tuesday for a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, an important event that he probably won't want to overshadow with a vice presidential pick. Then he heads to North Carolina and Virginia for a bus tour that runs into Thursday.
Obama is said to be operating with a list of five finalists, though there is no solid confirmation from his inner circle of who and how many are serious contenders.
One is believed to be Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was prepping for the job with a weekend trip overseas to Georgia, at the invitation of President Mikheil Saakashvili, to assess the situation there. His stock among those not in the know has risen sharply lately because of world events. How he is faring with the candidate is not known.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/18/AR2008081802691.html?wpisrc=newsletter
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Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
