The Grapevine Says It's Kaine ... Or Is It?

Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia is apparently the hot prospect for Barack Obama's running mate.

He's the smart money's choice to be chosen by the Chosen One.

Erick Erickson says so. He writes, in RedState.com's blog, that Kaine is the pick. "I'm perfectly open to being wrong," he writes, "but I do not think I am."

Kaine's stock does seem to be rising, Fox News reports, along with Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

It's hard to tell if that's due to what potential running mate Joe Biden said to reporters in the driveway of his Delaware home.

"I'm not the guy," Biden told the reporters earlier this week (in spite of his high-profile trip to the state of Georgia recently). Then, when asked if he had received any calls, he drove off after saying, "Good talking to you guys."

My father, for one, would like to see Biden on the ticket. He's been a Biden admirer for a long time. And I remember being impressed with Biden when, as a student reporter at the University of Arkansas, I covered a speech he gave in Fayetteville, Ark., in 1981.

Apparently, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh would like to see Biden on the ticket as well. But I wouldn't exactly call Limbaugh an admirer.

"I really hope it's Biden," Rush apparently said yesterdy (according to the RealClearPolitics blog). "You don't want to say that too loud, but I really do hope that it's Joe Biden, because we've got a mountain of archival audio on Joe Biden. Plus the arrogance factor times two. Biden and the messiah would be just delicious."

Time magazine's Karen Tumulty says Obama has been dropping some hints about the identity of his running mate — which she proceeds to dissect in an attempt to find out what he's thinking.

But I'm not sure how helpful her conclusion is: "[I]f I were to guess who it would be based strictly on what Obama himself has said," Tumulty writes, "I would say the pick is either Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana (low profile, both executive and foreign policy experience, but a supporter of the Iraq War), or a surprise whose name has not been circulating on the pundits' short lists."

Her most insightful remark may be this — "we'll know the answer soon."

Well, Obama is scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech a week from tonight. So we'll need to know who it is soon, won't we?

And it appears that Obama has made up his mind.

At least, that's what CNN is saying.

"I won't comment on anything else until I introduce our running mate to the world," he reportedly said today. "That's all you're going to get out of me."

I wonder if he's discussed this with his presumptive running mate yet.

Obama's Choice for Veep

The word is out.

Everyone is saying that Barack Obama is about to decide on his running mate.

Hmmm. The Democratic Convention begins a week from today.

Other than the fact that the Summer Olympics will be in progress until Sunday (therefore creating a bit of a distraction in the news media), I don't think you have to be psychic to conclude that Obama would need to make his choice soon.

• CNN says Obama is "expected to end the guessing game this week."
  
  And CNN's blog, Political Ticker, says Sen. Joe Biden is likely to be the choice.
• Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that Biden "may have become the front-runner," although he hesitates to dismiss Kaine as a possibility.
  
  "On the downside," writes Tapper, "an Obama-Kaine ticket would have two candidates who are so new to the national arena that they could be attacked for being light on experience."
  
  (Er, um, but Biden has been in the Senate for 36 years. Isn't that a little too status quo for this year's ticket? Where would "change" fit into that equation?)
  
  Tapper also reports that his colleague, George Stephanopoulos, now sees Hillary Clinton as a dark horse for the veep slot, rating "50:1" odds.
  
  (Many of Clinton's supporters believe that she earned a spot on the ticket with her strong showing in the primaries. But it doesn't work that way. I know John Edwards was the second-place finisher in 2004, but it was John Kerry's decision to put him on the ticket. It wasn't something Edwards earned. This decision is Barack Obama's to make.)
• Ben Smith and Glenn Thrush agree in Politico that Obama will make his announcement this week.
  
  But they are making no commitments on who the choice will be.
  
  They observe that Obama was scheduled to campaign with Gov. Bill Richardson today in New Mexico (where Hillary Clinton made an appearance yesterday, urging her supporters in New Mexico to "work as hard for Sen. Obama as you worked for me") and with Virginia's current and former governors, Tim Kaine (incumbent) and Mark Warner (now a candidate for U.S. Senate), later in the week.
  
  Observers now seem to think, however, that Warner's selection as the convention's keynote speaker will adversely affect fellow Virginian Kaine's chances of being Obama's running mate.
• Dan Balz reports, in the Washington Post's The Trail blog, that Obama has narrowed his list to five prospects — Biden, Kaine, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius — and he says that speculation on the fifth name is centering on Richardson, Chris Dodd and Jack Reed.
• If Obama doesn't bring enough experience to the ticket, the New Republic's blog The Stump has a name with eight years' worth of vice presidential gravitas — former Vice President Al Gore.
  
  A word of caution, though — Al might be a little old for a redux of that bus tour thing.
  
  Of course, come to think of it, Biden is older than Gore is. And so is Dodd. And so is Richardson.
  
  Sebelius is about Gore's age. And Reed is a little younger — but not much.
  
  Bayh is a comparative youngster at 52 (53 by Inauguration Day). And Kaine is the youngest of all, at 50.

Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias writes, in the Think Progress blog, that it's time to abolish the vice presidency.

What? And give up the opportunity to speculate wildly — sometimes on both parties' running mates — for weeks every four years?

My goodness, what would the pundits do with all that time on their hands?

A Modest Prediction

I'm not gifted with insights that tell me when the presumptive presidential nominees will announce their selections for running mate.

Nor do I have any inside information on who those choices will be.

But Barack Obama will accept his party's nomination in a little more than two weeks.

And John McCain will accept his party's nomination in a little more than three weeks.

So I don't think I'm going out on much of a limb here when I say that we'll know both parties' tickets within a month.

And my predictions on the identities of the running mates aren't based on any scientific methodology — just gut instincts (which means I'm just as likely to be wrong as I am to be right!).

Anyway, here (briefly) is my prediction:

• Democrats: I think Obama's best choice is Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico. With experience as a representative, governor and diplomat, Richardson has a résumé that few people can match.
  
  He's ready to be president if needed, and, being part Hispanic, he can attract support from the fastest-growing ethnic community in this country — a minority group that the Democrats haven't already tapped (unlike, for example, the black community — which has been voting nearly unanimously for Democrats for generations).
  
  Based on what I've been reading lately, I would say Obama's most obvious choice, at this point, is Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia. I don't think he brings to the table what Richardson does, but he has gubernatorial experience in a Southern state, and his popularity in his home state could help flip Virginia to the Democrats after spending four decades in the Republican column.
  
  I'm just not sure Kaine is quite as prepared to step in as Richardson is.
  
  So I predict that Obama will pick Richardson to be his running mate.


• Republicans: McCain has less of a margin for error — and he has fewer solid options than Obama does.
  
  It's a critical decision that McCain must make.
  
  I think the most obvious choice is Mitt Romney, McCain's former rival for the nomination who has been openly campaigning for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. I'm not convinced that McCain and Romney have patched up their differences, though, and I think being able to have a good personal relationship with his running mate is important to McCain.
  
  So, in spite of all the things that Romney could bring to the ticket, I believe McCain will go with the choice that I think best suits his need for someone he can get along with — former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.
  
  Ridge has a varied résumé of his own — in addition to being a former governor, he's been a representative and a Cabinet member.
  
  He may not be as conservative as some would like — he favors an accelerated death penalty process and he's against gay marriage but he's pro-choice, in spite of his Catholic upbringing.
  
  And he doesn't provide much contrast in age to McCain — Ridge will turn 63 on Aug. 27, and McCain will turn 72 two days after that.
  
  But there's a strong chemistry between the two men, and I think that's something that is important to McCain.

So that's my prediction.

Obama-Richardson vs. McCain-Ridge.

We'll find out soon if I'm right!

More Running Mate Talk

Please, Senators Obama and McCain.

Make your running mate selections soon. I can't take much more of this guessing game.

• Dan Schnur of the New York Times ponders this question: "Who would be the worse selection? Mitt Romney or Tim Kaine?"
  
  That's a tough one.
  
  Romney and Kaine "seem to have emerged as among the most likely vice presidential choices for their party’s nominees," Schnur writes. "But both men exacerbate the greatest weaknesses of Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama ... rather than addressing them."
  
  Of course, none of the people who have been mentioned as possible running mates would be in that position if not for the support of others.
• Whatever one may think of Romney, there are many people who are urging John McCain to pick him.
  
  Like Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics' HorseRaceBlog, who says McCain should waste no time in offering the spot to Romney.
  
  Cost has four reasons for McCain to pick Romney:
  
  
  1. Romney will energize conservatives. (Seems to me I've heard that one about a lot of prospects.)
  2. Romney will bring Michigan. (Well, that would be a big prize — if Romney can really deliver it.)
  3. Romney will bring economic credibility. (That, too, is important. Can Romney really deliver that one as well? And, if he can, if that's what Republicans want, why isn't he the presumptive presidential nominee, since ...)
  4. Romney can raise extra cash. (And against an opponent with the warchest Obama has at his fingertips, raising extra cash is an attractive asset, not merely a "delightful dividend.")
  
  
• And, on the Democratic side, there are many people who think Barack Obama should make a similar gesture to a former rival and put Hillary Clinton on his ticket.
  
  Like Lanny Davis, who writes, in the Wall Street Journal, that picking Clinton would be in Obama's best interest "[n]ot just to enhance his chances of winning — but, more important, to help him be a more effective president."
  
  It's questionable, of course, just how objective Davis is. He was President Clinton's legal counsel, and he was an active supporter of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. And he acknowledges a 39-year friendship with the former First Couple.
  
  Hardly an impartial observer.
  
  I'll give him credit for taking on the primary objections that have been raised to the notion of putting Hillary on the ticket:
  
  
  1. Sen. Clinton is polarizing and will rev up the Republican base.
     
     "In fact, the data proves the reverse is true," writes Davis. "Sen. Clinton has little or no effect on Republican preferences in a race against Sen. McCain — and she helps Sen. Obama significantly among Democrats."
  2. Choosing Sen. Clinton would be counter to the Obama message of "new politics" and change.
     
     "Barack Obama selecting her as the first female vice president would reinforce his change message," Davis says, "not detract from it."
  3. She would not be a team player, and her husband would be a distraction or worse in an Obama White House.
     
     "Hillary Clinton is the ultimate team player," Davis writes.
     
     Well, I'm not so sure about all that. But, as positive press goes, it doesn't get much more positive than Davis' article.
  
  
• The articles about Hillary's chances haven't been all favorable. Jennifer Parker and Sunlen Miller report, for ABC News, that Hillary's supporters are miffed because Obama, apparently, "may choose another woman" to be his running mate.
  
  Sounds like the kind of argument Obama would be wise to avoid.