It is my new 'comments' tic (the really annoying kind) - the pick will be Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

Maybe he picked McCain, but McCain picked Romney, and they're trying to sort out "who's on first."

I have to believe it's one of two things: they are running into more serious tech challenges than they realized would be true in e-mailing/texting the news (as stories of the bogus text messages suggest) and/or they want to break the story right during the Chris Matthews/Keith Olbermann handoff at 8:00 for maximum favorable media coverage. (I hope they each wore dark trousers to work today if I'm right on that second one.)

Or they're just wildly overplaying their hand. That's possible, too.

kgrant: I see your Schwetizer and raise a Chet Edwards.  You get an Edwards on the ballot with no lovebabybaggage.

My guess is he chose Biden, and then just before the announcement, Biden remembered that he had received Electroshock Therapy in the aftermath of his abysmal performance in '88.  Plan B is Geraldine Ferraro, to unite the Party's asses.

The Obama campaign is just trying to build great press relations.

Who has the stake out on the facility printing the campaign signs?  How are they going to get them done in time?

The longer this goes, the more I think it will be some kind of surprise pick.  If it were Biden, Bayh, or even Clinton, this would be over.  

Of course, I am likely wrong, but I have the growing sense that this all points to somebody we are not thinking about.  I actually hope that is the case simply to screw with CNN who has somebody staked out at every potential VP pick.

Maybe Obama and McCain are fighting over Lieberman.

Nobody in Washington has any idea where Brad Henry is right now. I'm just saying ...

Anyway, what's the big deal? I understand that reporters as a class will be pissed off if they're left to report that something happened only after it actually happened, instead of being spoonfed insider information in advance so that they can uselessly report that something is about to happen before it does. But why should the rest of us think it's a bad thing for Obama to be able to keep a secret?

Memo to TNR and the rest of the press: How about a little "What the Hell Is Taking So Long?" agitation the next time, say, Congress fails to pass its annual budgets before the start of the fiscal year? You know, when we're talking about an actual deadline for the completion of work with real importance to the welfare of the republic?

One other possiblity (which I doubt, but isn't impossible): they ran into a last second problem with the pick (as a commenter somewhere here today said, they need to re-vet them for the number of houses owned).  

Here are *my* surprise picks: Richardson, Olympia Snowe, General Zinni.

I apologize; at the last minute they read my TNR TalkBack posts, and had to start over.  Tep should be fully vetted by supper time tonight.

Since I'm a born worrier, I'm beginning to wonder if their vetting turned up some skeletons on choice number one, and now there's some scrambling going on for choice number two. Hope I'm wrong, though.

You're lucky Obama isn't my deceased mother, Noam, or he would wait another week, maybe two, then announce that his VP pick is Raoul "Lefty" Cuttlefish, vice-chair of the Red Willow (Nebraska) County Board of Education, just to spite you for being impatient.

He'd also have his database people remove your name beforehand from the text-message list while making sure that everyone else at TNR is on it. So you'll be the last to know.

You hear that, Ma??? I'm waiting for your response. But you can't respond, can you, Ma?? Hahahahahahahah!!!

[williamyard removes a flask from his office desk, downs a long slug of rye, replaces flask]

[williamyard wipes mouth on sleeve of stained, ragged T-shirt]

[flies buzz in aimless circles above the heart-wrenching decrepitude that is the ruins of williamyard's life, and that smells vaguely of cheese]

Clark!

Flash: it's me.

/psych

I find it absolutely tedious.  I'm an Obama supporter, but this seems to be just the sort of silly, obvious gaming that will turn journalists (further) against him.  He needs to make himself *liked* by the writers and reporters, and that means doing something to make himself more of a "regular guy" in their minds, like McCain in 2000 with tons of access.  The opportunities to do that are being frittered away, and that plays into and reinforces the celebrity/superstar/The One narrative.

The danger here is that the choice will, indeed, seem not worth waiting for.

Drudge says it's Bayh. Says bumper sticker printing company leaked some info.

Once again, Wonder Boy underwhelms. Overpromise, underdeliver.

(yawn)

Noam wrote, "You can let the suspense build and build if you've got a Hillary or a Gore socked away somewhere. Possibly a Biden or a Webb (or some unorthodox pick like a general or a Republican). But you'd better not come with Jack Reed or Evan Bayh after toying with people for over a week."

I agree. And if you're right I'm even more certain that this suspense has been in the works for a long time and they knew the real deal would be worth going though this week (month) of goofing.  This outfit makes Bill Walsh (who scripted the first 30 or so plays for the 49ers) look spontaneous. It may be a long time before we find out how long ago this production was finalized. No, 'the pick' didn't know they were in this scene back in the Spring.

So, the easy reason for the "why" of this week? EZ! It was all fixed, long ago.

I may be a fool but I've been consistent.  

Sadly it's going to be the paint dryingly boring pick, Bayh.

In keeping with his celebrity status he will let the National Enquirer break the story.   Is it Big Foot or Elvis?

This lets McCain off the hook. He doesn't need to take any risks at all with his VP choice, which means he'll choose Pawlenty.

Which means the election will go back to being about Obama. Bad news for Team O.

Don't know if it is Bayh, but his price is going up quick on intrade.

As Marc Ambinder mentions that bumper stocker is to poorly designed to be part of Obama's output. Have you seen his website?

The poetry of the joint ticket, Obama-Bayh, is really ominously negative and offers purchase to any number of late-night talkshow jokes, smug Republican guffaws, and just generally all the damage that homonyms of 'bye' and 'buy' can do.  The only plus is that Bayh is so boring that he's not going to change the dynamic of the campaign in any way except to dampen it down a bit.

OK so they didn't get it from the campaign sign factory, but the bumper sticker factory--its Bayh.  Boring as I thought.

Although on the other hand, the font on the bumper sticker is not the sans-serif style that is Obama's trademark. Would a campaign so heavily invested in symbolism really make that change?

[I know, I know, hanging an argument on font!]

What is intrade?

I dunno, I prefered Biden, but Bayh isn't the worst pick for the long haul.  Consider:

1)  Least offensive to the Hillary folks (won't win them over, but not a spit in the face)

2)  Has both congressional and state exec experience, but since he's a governor and relatively young he fits the "outside the beltway theme."  

3)  Because of #2 he's qualified to be president.  Some of the others weren't.

4)  He's smart and kinda boring -- fine, Obama doesn't need Mr. or Ms. excitement.

I just don't know why they waited this long if it is Bayh -- a small, but definite, mistake.

For a while Bayh was showing up at meetings with these two maps of all the Indiana counties and he'd hold up one and say "here are the counties Kerry won in '04" and there were a few, and then he'd hold up a second map and say "here are the counties I won in '04" and there were lots more.

The apparent moral of the presentation was "I can win in Red State America." Assuming the rumors are true, the Obama campaign apparently has bought the theory at least for Indiana's 11 EVs (which maybe make the difference if the election is a replay of '04) and perhaps more. Say, Ohio? Lock down Pennsylvania? West Virginia? And he has some serious foreign policy creds. So all in all, an ok pick...maybe not exciting but if it works, what the heck.

So how long until the Weekly Standard figures out a way to declare Bayh the SECOND most liberal Senator?  

It is entirely possible the the bumper sticker company is printing these out as a gamble.  

I don't know who it is - we'll know soon enough - and I suspect it will be Chet Edwards (it was not just a bad joke, my note above) - among other reasons because of what Irony has intoned over the past four months about Obamabyebye riffs.

But - just so that we are clear about one thing: on the basis of an unverified Drudge report of Obama's alleged choice, Tep writes: "Wonder Boy underwhelms. Overpromise, underdeliver."

Could you please hold the thought until he actually does underdeliver?  And he never did "over-promise"; the "over" is in your own head.  He said, this week in fact, that he is looking for someone solid, someone who does not hog the limelight, who is not a yes-man and someone who "complements" him - as in someone who has other experiences than Obama's.  This speaks to Clark, but also Edwards; but this speaks to a clear exercise of judgement by Obama to select a solid candidate, not an "exciting one", but a solid one.  This is his promise.  So if you are going to "yawn", Tep, about his "over promise", at least judge the selection by the promise, not by what you hope his promise ought to have been.

180,

It's Bat Boy.

Nah, I'm telling you, Obama isn't ordering from off the menu. it's going to be vegetable lasagna.

mattnewman: this is the typical ahead-of-the-curve job that a risk-taking sticker maker might want to have done.  The real one would be subject to confidentiality agreements that would require Haliburton's lawyers to get out of, so a leak out of the printers?  I don't think so.

It could be Bye, I mean, Bligh, I mean, Bayh - but faut pas exagerer.

Obama/Bayh reminds me of lullabye--and they both put you to sleep.

"This lets McCain off the hook. He doesn't need to take any risks at all with his VP choice, which means he'll choose Pawlenty.

Which means the election will go back to being about Obama. Bad news for Team O."

If McCain is deciding his VP candidate on the basis of Obama's choice, the country is in deeper shit than I thought possible - assuming McCain has a chance of winning.  The choice will have been made a long time ago - should have been made a long time ago - on the basis of two criteria: fitness, and ability to complement (if not compliment) the candidate.  That's why I think all the hype about when Obama will make his decision was stupid in the first place.  He will have made the decision, with the vetting going on for possible last minute glitches.  And McCain should have done the same.  In any event, no matter what happens, according to you it's "bad news for Team O", so what's your point?  

Yawn.

tomeg: http://www.intrade.com/

Prediction Market Bets On Biden For VP:

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../prediction-markets-overwh_n_120563.html

Que sera, serif. He's moving to the center for the GE, so a fuddy-duddy font makes sense.

announce already...I'm gettin' bored and restless...

The Drudge story looks like BS to me. It's a photoshopped hoax. I'm still waiting for the real news. I say it's Hillary, Gore, or Hagel.

"If McCain is deciding his VP candidate on the basis of Obama's choice,..."

Of course his choice is conditioned by his opponent's. There are millions of independent voters up for grabs, and millions of Democrats who are queasy about Obama. So if,heaven forfend, Obama were to have the balls and brains to choose Hillary, McCain's hopes of poaching millions of PUMAs would go up in smoke. In this case, or if Obama were to choose Biden, McCain would have little choice but to swing for the fences and choose an unconventional VP like Ridge or Lieberman.

I don't know about you but this steadfast Obama supporter is getting really pissed off.

" . . . among other reasons because of what Irony has intoned over the past four months about Obamabyebye riffs."

Somebody else came up with the notion originally, but I can't recall who.

If he needs all this time to finish something unimportant, how long will it take for something really important?

Why photoshopped? They need something fast. They can always change the design tomorrow. Anyway, the old design was kind of Pa Kettle: too heavy on the farmland imagery. He's not in Springfield no' mo',

OK so now the bumpersticker story is a hoax and it looks like Biden, but won't be announced til morning, EST?  Are they really going to text West Coast voters early on a Saturday am and piss off those college kids sleeping a good Friday night off?

Pssssst! Pass the word.  It's Lieberman!!!!!!!!  Similar record on domestic issues.  The non-yes man he wants for foreign policy.  That'll show you McCain.  

See, the call comes in at 3AM, but he doesn't hang up until noon....

3am: obviously playing for his core (18 year-old clubhoppers, law student grinds) plus reaching out to Hillaristas on the third shift.

mpatrickhendri & lsernoff-

Your posts suggest that it is indeed time for another contest.

And so here we go. . .

__________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

D E M

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

So far the candidates are:

1. Bat Boy

2. Vegetable Lasagna

3. Joe Lieberman

4. Arugula

5. Jerome Corsi

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

Definitely going to be Oprah.

moi

Gotta go with "Germany."

I gather that Friday afternoon is bad placement in the news cycle because people are out socializing on a Friday night, or home with the family.  But remember that Obama's announcing this by text message.  Maybe he wants people to get their text messages, be the first person in the car/BBQ/party/living room/softball game to know, and then start telling their friends why they like Obama.  Then, maybe turn on a TV to see the (positive) coverage, and get caught up in the positive group dynamics.

maxblum13, glacialspeed, & tep-

Your contributions have been duly noted (below).

______________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

D E M

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

So far the candidates are:

1. Bat Boy

2. Vegetable Lasagna

3. Joe Lieberman

4. Arugula

5. Jerome Corsi

6. Oprah

7. teplukhin2you

8. Germany

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

actually, that was Moi as in Daniel Arap

Awwon Buww.

mpatrickhendri, lsernoff, maxblum13, glacialspeed, & tep-

I think perhaps in the interest of fairness, we should also start a somewhat parallel contest.

So here goes. . .

_________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

G O P

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

So far the candidates are:

1. Charles Keating

2. The Hanoi Hilton

3. Paris Hilton

4. The Slighlty Soiled Underwear of George W. Bush

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

Joe:

Still Chet Edwards.

Tep: PUMAs will come back to Papabama.  Abortion; Scalia.

I nominate for the GOP Cindy McCain's real estate agent, so John will always know how many houses and condos his wife owns.

"Who's gonna delete an unread e-mail from the Obama campaign knowing it could include the veep's name."

Me.  I just did.

I like Barry Bonds for the Dems.  He's been out of work lately, and he would make Obama look downright humble in comparison.  Oh, wait.  There's that problem with the felony indictment.  Never mind.

If Germany can be Obama's Veep, I'd go with the Fudge Haus for the GOP.

adaglas, icarusr, & tep-

Your contributions have been duly noted (below).

______________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

D E M

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

Here's an updated list of the candidates so far:

1. Bat Boy

2. Vegetable Lasagna

3. Joe Lieberman

4. Arugula

5. Jerome Corsi

6. Oprah

7. teplukhin2you

8. Germany

9. Awwon Buww

10. Daniel Arap Moi (aka tep)

11. Chet Edwards

12. John Edwards

13. Reille Hunter

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

STOP THE PRESSES:

I change my GOP nomiee to:

"Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who made his first fortune in chain pharmacies and is now listed as the 73rd richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $2.1 billion."

He funded the Ayers 527 ad.

Someone should ask McCain how many billionaire friends his got.

cal80 & icarusr-

Your contributions have been duly noted (below).

_________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

G O P

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

Here's an updated list of the candidates thus far:

1. Charles Keating

2. The Hanoi Hilton

3. Paris Hilton

4. The Slighlty Soiled Underwear of George W. Bush

5. Cindy McCain's Real Estate Agent

6. Dallas Billionaire Harold Simmons

7. The Rotting Corpse of Leona Helmsley

8. McCain's Crippled and Disfigured First Wife, Carol

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

"Papabama"? (Y)ick.

McCain clearly needs someone to balance him out - young, female, able to carry a key regional constituency.  I speak of course of Hannah Montana.

I guess they are waiting until the last minute to minimize any negative campaign McCain will mount before the convention launch.

#8 is so wrong.

Joe...

I nominate Ignatius J. Reilly, he of green hunting cap and the cemented valve...

I think McCain should go with an aborted fetus for his veep.  It'll fire up the base.

this is getting really ugly. i'm outta here

glacialspeed-

This (below) is from the (UK) Mail Online:

______________________________________________________________________________

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. "I have no bitterness," she says. "My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce.

"My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens. . .it just does."

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to "play the field." They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons. . . .

When McCain--his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to little more than a skeleton-- was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again.

But friends say privately he was ‘appalled’ by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: "I don’t look so good myself. It’s fine."

He bought her a bungalow near the sea in Florida and another former PoW helped him to build a railing so she could pull herself over the dunes to the water.

"I thought, of course, we would live happily ever after," says Carol. But as a war hero, McCain was moving in ever-more elevated circles. . . .

But already the McCains' marriage had begun to fray. "John started carousing and running around with women," said Robert Timberg.

McCain has acknowledged that he had girlfriends during this time, without going into details. Some friends blame his dissatisfaction with Carol, but others give some credence to her theory of a mid-life crisis. . . .

In 1979--while still married to Carol--he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.

Carol and her children were devastated. . . .

Another friend [said]: "Carol didn’t fight him. She felt her infirmity made her an impediment to him. She justified his actions because of all he had gone through. She used to say, 'He just wants to make up for lost time.'"

Indeed, to many in their circle the saddest part of the break-up was Carol’s decision to resign herself to losing a man she says she still adores. . . .

And yet despite his popularity as a politician, there are those who won’t forget his treatment of his first wife.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: "I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

"When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

"Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

"This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol."

. . .Ross Perot, who paid [Carol's] medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel --ven by the standards of modern politics.

"McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory," he said.

"After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history."

cal80 & Cookie-

Your contribution has been duly noted (below).

______________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

D E M

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

Here's an updated list of the candidates so far:

1. Bat Boy

2. Vegetable Lasagna

3. Joe Lieberman

4. Arugula

5. Jerome Corsi

6. Oprah

7. teplukhin2you

8. Germany

9. Awwon Buww

10. Daniel Arap Moi (aka tep)

11. Chet Edwards

12. John Edwards

13. Reille Hunter

14. Barry Bonds

15. Rev. Wright/Tony Rezko/Bill Ayers

16. Ignatius J. Reilly

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

Keith Olbermann for Obama--or maybe Rachel Maddow.  Chris Matthews for McCain--or maybe Pat Buchanan.

They all deserve each other.

adaglas & maxblum13-

Your contributions have been duly noted (below).

_________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

G O P

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

Here's an updated list of the candidates thus far:

1. Charles Keating

2. The Hanoi Hilton

3. Paris Hilton

4. The Slighlty Soiled Underwear of George W. Bush

5. Cindy McCain's Real Estate Agent

6. Dallas Billionaire Harold Simmons

7. The Rotting Corpse of Leona Helmsley

8. McCain's Crippled and Disfigured First Wife, Carol

9. Hannah Montana

10. An Aborted Fetus

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

timteeter-

Your contribution has been duly noted (below).

______________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

D E M

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

Here's an updated list of the candidates so far:

1. Bat Boy

2. Vegetable Lasagna

3. Joe Lieberman

4. Arugula

5. Jerome Corsi

6. Oprah

7. teplukhin2you

8. Germany

9. Awwon Buww

10. Daniel Arap Moi (aka tep)

11. Chet Edwards

12. John Edwards

13. Reille Hunter

14. Barry Bonds

15. Rev. Wright/Tony Rezko/Bill Ayers

16. Ignatius J. Reilly

17. Keith Olbermann

18. Rachel Maddow

19. Amber Lee Ettinger (aka Obama Girl)

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

my apologies for the last outburst. i'm on the phone with united airlines. what a charming experience

timteeter-

Your (other) contribution has been duly noted (below).

_________________________________________________________________________

THE TNR TALKBACK NATION

MERRY PLANKSTERS AWARD

for

B E S T

G O P

V P

N O M I N E E

__________________________________________________________________________

Here's an updated list of the candidates thus far:

1. Charles Keating

2. The Hanoi Hilton

3. Paris Hilton

4. The Slighlty Soiled Underwear of George W. Bush

5. Cindy McCain's Real Estate Agent

6. Dallas Billionaire Harold Simmons

7. The Rotting Corpse of Leona Helmsley

8. McCain's Crippled and Disfigured First Wife, Carol

9. Hannah Montana

10. An Aborted Fetus

11. Chris Matthews

12. Pat Buchanan

13. Rev. Hagee

14. Tom Selleck

_________________________________________________________________________

Place your own candidate in nomination right here on this thread.

Bayh out, Kaine out, Dodd out, according to the NY Times blog as of about half an hour ago.

From the Times:

______________________________________________________________________________

Senator Barack Obama began informing Democrats of his vice presidential decision on Friday, several officials said, telling Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana that they would not be asked to join the party’s ticket.

The campaign planned to announce the choice on Saturday morning.

Oh for Gods sake - I left a family dinner of us all sitting on a BEACH so I could come in here and tap away at my frigging Iphone in the dark and still nothing.

I'm going back out there and staying - if anything happens, will someone please call me?

Thanks.

CNN just said it's Biden.

It seems that Obama has chosen Biden, whose position on Iraq has been close to that of President Bush, for VP.  Question:  Will the Saddam loving, America hating, John Judis, Michael Moore, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid base of the Democratic Party rebel and vote for Ralph Nader?  We fans of Western Civilization sure as hell hope so.

And, funny enough, the esteemed tep was sure it was Evan Bayh and he was profoundly disappointed by it.

Of course, he also mentioned "millions of PUMAs," as well, so why anyone would listen to him is anyone's guess.

Biden's a great choice, for President. As #2 he won't have any impact on the election.

McCain's breathing a lot easier now. He can choose either Pawlenty (my guess) or Romney; neither will make a difference, just as Biden in the #2 slot won't affect anyone's vote.

This is back to being about Obama. Pity we didn't choose Biden. Oh well.

Ah man!! I forgot to nominate Geraldine Ferraro as Obama's running mate so he could win all the PUMAs.  Too late now.