Senator Obama has been playing this whole symphony elegantly. He has left the media with a crippling case of blue balls for the last week. The thought that he would pull a relatively-unvetted Hillary card out of his ass didn’t seem that improbable. Picking Hillary would have set Denver on fire. The PUMAs wouldn’t know what to do with their petulant pouting.

It was a bold prediction, and it didn’t happen. That said, I’m not at all disappointed. Obama-Biden is the most exciting ticket in memory, and for once, it’s a VP pick that is generating excitement for all the right reasons.

Make no mistake, this man will make mistakes, and he will embarrass this ticket as much as the grandfather that he is, but he’s no John McCain. John McCain is a once-great senator and now desperate old man who will reach out for the Presidency no matter the cost to his dignity or reputation. Joe Biden’s senior moments are the product of a man who has all his faculties and is old enough and has been in public life long enough that he doesn’t care what the people who hear him think of his pugnacious and snotty retorts. He is a party man in the grandest Tip O’Neill/Lyndon B. Johnson fashion. No one can ever top LBJ, but if Joe Biden thinks you’re being vicious, disengenuous, or an outright fraud, rest assured he’ll let you know. He’s lived six and a half decades on this planet, and he doesn’t care who takes umbrage as his frequent mouth-offs and he won’t answer a damned single question about his 1990s hair resurgence after two decades of progressive balding.

I will always have massive props for the 1992 Clinton-Gore ticket, which was the right pair at the right time, paired against the patrician dinosaur, George H.W. Bush, and his vapid, malapropping understudy waging a one-man war against English grammar and sentence structure. But this is the funnest ticket I can cite from any time, back to Adlai Ewing Stevenson working the hustings for Grover Cleveland’s second, non-consecutive term. Not to overlook the charm, charisma, and rapier wit of Dick Cheney, of course.

INTERRUPTION: Oh, there you are.  I just got my text message, at 1:59 AM, from the Obama campaign, announcing his selection of Senator Biden–four hours after the news broke on CNN. A nation of baristas in their hemp shirts are collectively wondering, “Can I get my ten bucks back?” and “I can’t remember–was it ‘nader.org’?” To which a harried Obama team replies, “Please accept our apologies and the 58 donation requests you will receive from our campaign in the next two days, but we appreciate your providing your email address and cell phone number. As a gesture of good faith, we promise we will notify you by text message when President-elect Obama chooses his director of Office of Management and Budget.”

If it’s any consolation, John McCain’s supporters will be receiving their notification of their candidate’s nominee by direct-mail postcard.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO CHUCK TODD: If you got less than a C- in college algebra, you’d best skip the voter analysis from MSNBC’s Chuck Todd and switch over to Lifetime instead. “Well, the Biden pick is a huge boon for Obama in Pennsylvania, if you consider the six square blocks in Harrisburg that turned Montgomery County for George Bush in 2004. You wouldn’t think that would be the case, but Durlene Tucker’s son was recently wounded in Fallujah, and her daughter is a City Council member who is thinking of running for mayor. It might not be apparent if you look at the electoral map, but this is a huge bellwether. Huge. Seriously.”

Okay, it’s not never mind yet, but I’m less certain than I was ten hours ago when I wrote it. For one thing, I haven’t gotten a text message yet, and the morning news cycle is creeping along with nothing but speculation and with the passing of the day’s vital news window–it’s already 11:00 AM on the East Coast, and the Olympics are drawing to a close tonight and tomorrow–the chances for a pick today are winnowing fast. So, if not today…when?

I’ll tell you when. It hit me in the shower this morning. Tomorrow’s signature event in Springfield is just a smokescreen. It’s an attaboy for his campaign staff and a symbolic launch into the convention, and a deliberate if somewhat cruel tease.

No, this is going down on Sunday, and it’s going to be Hillary Clinton. The PUMA movement is going to wither up and dissolve like salt dousing a slug, and Obama-Clinton are going to devour every news cycle for the next eight until the jaded, nonplused Republicans file into Minneapolis as if they were attending their Uncle Tony’s fifth wedding. And John McCain will be spending his 72nd birthday on Friday getting free strawberry banana pancakes at IHOP and pouring four fingers of bourbon into his coffee.

Sure, Obama will have to deal with Bill (“Godbilla” as referred to in these pages previously), but he needs an attack dog and a Rapid Response unit, as Biden would be, but Joe Biden didn’t get 18 million votes in the primaries. Hillary as recently as yesterday referred to Obama as “my opponent.” Obama is not necessarily one to respond to pressure, but he does make pragmatic concessions where necessary (the flag pin, for example). He needs to put some distance between himself and McCain, and he needs to have a smooth and unified convention in Denver without those PUMA lunatics tossing a grenade into every crowded room with a TV camera and a live microphone present.

And by taking her he loses nothing that he wouldn’t get with Biden, even though Biden is a hell of a lot funnier.

Anyway, you just as well put your text ringer on mute today and save your co-workers the irritation. It’s not happening until Sunday and you heard it hear first.

This is absolutely my final prediction on the matter.

But I’m not ruling out Joe Biden.

The GOP race is still in play, but for the Democrats, it’s all over but the knighting. Bill Richardson, Kathleen Sebelius, and Wesley Clark, thanks for playing. You will be welcomed warmly in Denver with two free drink coupons and a goodie bag.

John Edwards, good luck on your return to a life as a well-paid but disgraced lawyer and living the rest of your days as a political eunuch. You have nothing but your penis to blame, and you should thank God for The Huffington Post and The National Enquirer that you aren’t going to be the man who single-handedly destroyed your party’s chances for the White House.

Hillary, still a wild card, but you buy her, you get Bill, and unlike four or five years ago, that’s not really a good thing anymore. Her pick could mollify those insane PUMA harpies, but for this discussion, until I change my mind, I’m sticking with the conventional wisdom.

Let’s take a quick look at the last three who are still on the radar and who Barack might walk down the runway tomorrow.

Governor Tim Kaine – Virginia: Young, handsome, and could deliver Virginia in a tight race. But he’s a first-term governor and the biggest heat the Democratic nominee is taking is for his lack of experience, and Kaine doesn’t bring nearly enough to the table. Don’t sub-let the statehouse, Governor.

Senator Evan Bayh – Indiana: A 62% blue senator in a red state, and a personality that is 100% dishwater grey. Senator Bayh can’t deliver Indiana and 4 out of 5 respondents say they’d rather party with George Will. Obama picks Bayh and half the convention is going to be angling for a seat at the bar at Vesta before the Indiana is 107 words into his acceptance speech.

Senator Joe Biden – Delaware: A one-man Rapid Response team. With a campaign already uglier than a Kevin Farley-Jocelyn Wildenstein love child, and about to get as recoilingly horrible as Louie Anderson in a thong, Barack Obama needs an attack dog, and Senator Biden is a man who will brook not even the tiniest nugget of hurled GOP/527 feces. You don’t bring a pen knife to an axe fight, and Joe Biden will show up in the tavern parking lot with a chainsaw in each hand. Ladies and gentleman, doff your hats and respectfully welcome your 2008 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, the man from Scranton, Senator Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

IN OTHER NEWS: For those of you who haven’t gotten enough of Wayne’s and my hideously uglified visages on the Veeps.us and Veepsblog.com headers, we’re bringing our mugs to the big screen. I mentioned a few weeks ago that we have a film crew tagging along with us telling our story, and they’ve effectively owned our arses for the last three weeks, hence the lack of postings. This production will do nothing to dispel our long-held notions that we are better off behind the scenes spinning our perverted commentary and illustrations, but we’ve been very busy the last six months, and aren’t at our best. Wayne looks better than I do, but he simply does not tan, and after a decade and a half of fanatical physical fitness, I look like I’ve recently eaten four babies. No worries, we’ll make enough money from the book to buy some bronzer for Wayne, and I should back down to my fighting weight of 170 by the time premieres and book signings roll around.

We’re off to Denver on Monday for the Democratic convention, but I have a relatively light weekend to decompress and resuscitate the blog. More tomorrow.

John McCain started his Veep search in earnest with a Memorial Day barbecue, but it’s not clear at this point that he’s given any serious consideration to his short list since then. Granted, it’s July, and people take advantage of the quiet lull of summer to rest and reflect, and to cross some long-neglected things off their to-do list–hell, I’ve missed my share of blogs between my birthday, some months-avoided personal matters, and a grueling visit to the dentist that should have happened eight years ago. On the other hand, I’m not running for President, and if I were, I think picking my Veep might be one of those things on the aforementioned to-do list that I would want to address.

But he’s the one who’s earned the grudging, exasperated, occasionally appalled, but ultimately resigned acceptance of his party, so let’s just keep my armchair quarterbacking out of it. That said, it’s been two weeks since we last assessed the GOP gallery of Vice Presidential hopefuls, and they’ve quite frankly gathered more moss than momentum. Our real short list for Senator McCain is still very short.

Bobby Jindal – Governor, Louisiana: The only real reason for keeping Governor Jindal on the list is that I needed a legitimate short list, and Phil Gramm missed the cut. Not that he doesn’t bring his own unique bonafides to the table–this country could stand a good exorcism, no doubt about that–but Bobby Jindal’s “I Was A Teenage Exorcist” yarn would provide as many knee-slaps and head-scratches throughout the campaign season as most of Dan Quayle’s malapropisms and misstatements on his own road to the White House. Then again, Dan Quayle made it to the White House. And for anyone keeping their eye on state politics, it’s curious that Governor Jindal has lately put some lead in his veto pencil and taken aim at some 250 legislative earmarks in the latest Louisiana state budget, and “earmarks” are to John McCain’s campaign what “lockbox” was to Al Gore’s. The sagacity of Rush Limbaugh notwithstanding, this is a sillier choice with every passing week. With every application of the magnifying glass, it’s more and more apparent that Jindal doesn’t have much more control over his state than did Kathleen Blanco. If you’re looking for serious executive mojo, the Louisiana governor’s mansion ain’t the place.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 80 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/30/2008): 50 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/16/2008): 45 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/2/2008): 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/17/2008): 3 to 1

Charlie Crist – Governor, Florida: Still clean-shaven to the naked eye, Charlie got his beard this past week when he announced his engagement to his girlfriend, Carole Rome. I’d like to believe that they’re very much in love and that he’s found his soulmate after 30 years of bachelorhood, but the cynic in me cries “vetting!” The gay rumors have been dogging Charlie for years, and I’d certainly applaud that kind of diversity at that high a level of the Republican Party. Still, why any self-respecting homosexual would come out as openly Republican, except for purely pocketbook reasons, has always been beyond me, going back to the inception of the Log Cabin Republicans. Putting that aside and assuming that he’s truly found love with Carole Rome (but don’t be surprised if there’s a hasty divorce sometime in his immediate future), there would be a reason the GOP and McCain’s team would be urging Crist to get his “traditonal family values” house in order. With Florida poll numbers tight, he still makes the most sense as McCain’s running mate. While his behavior may just be good politics, though, his recent flip-flop on offshore oil exploration and drilling, not to mention his engagement, smells all too much like the young man I worked with many years ago who bragged about getting a swoosh logo tattooed on the small of his back in anticipation of his interview with Nike. A word of advice, Governor: As Gene Kelly said in Singin’ In The Rain, “Dignity, always dignity.”
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 3 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/30/2008): 4 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/16/2008): Even money
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/2/2008): 1.5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/19/2008): 1.5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/2008): 2 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line  (4/14/2008): 3 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (2/18/2008): 6 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/31/2008):4 to 1

With an exception or two, Senator Obama won’t win this election with the right pick, but he can really screw things up with the wrong one. He’s exhibiting a Dick Morrisesque sense to play it safe of late, to triangulate and try corral the center. That’s pragmatic, but it isn’t visionary. Just like the women our fathers wound up with, it’s all about the sensible choose. Barack Obama has dazzled his base on going a little against type. He wants someone well-heeled, and he’s not afraid of a mate who will unabashedly wear white after Labor Day, but he wants boots on the ground after the troops lace up and march out of Denver. Who’s it gonna be?

Hillary Clinton – Senator, New York: Damn you , Unity. This one was deader than the weirdly-vaunted Richard Gephardt pick that has emerged the last several months by pundit Mark Shields and similarly long-in-the-tooth wagering men who still somehow have money after all these years to cling to their dated allegiances and throw good money after bad on the Knicks. But dammit if Hillary and Barack didn’t look pretty good in New Hampshire. For all the smack I’ve talked about Hillary lo these many months–and I don’t retract a word of it–she’s done the party and her reputation right and stepped up. She could run with this man, and with not only sincerity, but conviction, determination, and with the same magnitude of energy she deployed to cutting his heart out in the primaries. It’s still a long shot. The Clinton supporters are signing onto Obama in numbers that were unexpected a month ago, when it was presumed that there would need to be a lot of heavily-mediated healing to happen before a Hatfield could lie down with a McCoy. Yet, here we are. On the other hand, Obama could be buying a Bill of bads, as the former President is still somewhat unhinged from the shrapnel he took during the primaries, no matter how many heavy stones he threw into the minefield. Besides that, his jury’s still out on Senator Obama, and he’s twelve angry men unto himself. His antics and anger could make Obama more amenable to bringing Roger Clinton into his White House. But a strong leader commander should be able to manage his loose cannons. This a pick that is a little more probable once again. Not crazy enough that it might work. It might work.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 24 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/23/08): 144 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: (6/9/08): 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/26/08): 16 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/12/08): 14 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/08): 9 to 1

Bill Richardson – Governor, New Mexico: What can brown do for you, Republican Party? I love Bill Richardson, but the Republicans already have the man partly responsible for the 1988 Willy Horton ad ready to bait the hook and see what kind of voting bottom-feeders he can pull up. A black and an Hispanic make for a risky ticket, in a country that has never let one of either near the highest job in the land. But the West is in play–New Mexico, Colorado, even Arizona. As long as Richardson stays on his fitness regimen and doesn’t pack on the pounds, it won’t matter if Charlie Crist or Tim Pawlenty are a little thinner and more telegenic than the somewhat plump New Mexico Governor. He’s got the chops to leave his opponents a pale white puddle on the stage (except for whatever possibly non-FDA-approved melanin-enhancements are coloring Governor Crist’s epidermis). I think I’m holding the line on this pick.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 8 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/23/08): 8 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/9/08): 10 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (2/18/08): 40 to 1

Tim Kaine – Governor, Virginia: The Governor’s stock just shot up appreciably on a day with the Webb just untangled himself. Virginia’s junior Senator and a favorite of the Dems, Senator Jim Webb, just unequivocally pulled his name out of the running today. Virginia is very much in play, and tapping almost-certain Senatorial shoo-in Mark Warner would be foolish and futile. Popular Governor Kaine is a safe but smart pick. As the calendar gets tighter, so does the line. And as long as Virginia doesn’t blow wide open for Senator Obama, and as long as a grainy photo of Governor Kaine tailgating at a Virginia Tech game with a Confederate flag flying from his antenna doesn’t surface on YouTube, he’s Big Brown heading into the Belmont Stakes. Unfortunately, he’s Big Brown heading into the Belmont Stakes. I made the mistake of picking Big Brown on this blog, so let’s hope my betting mojo doesn’t rub off on Governor Kaine. Nonetheless…
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 3 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/23/08): 4 to 1

Sam Nunn – former Senator, Georgia: The sweltering July heat notwithstanding, I’m not feeling any warmth with this choice. All I’m feeling is that Democrats are digging into their nostalgia file, to paraphrase Ricky Roma. And that they already called Mario Cuomo and found out that he’s busy–still busy. Sam Nunn was, like Mario Cuomo, a frontrunner for 1992, but, like many others, he was cowed by President George H.W. Bush’s 91% approval ratings after Gulf War I, and bowed out. Sixteen years ago, people. We’re getting into Richard Gephardt territory. The last time the Democrats deferred to age and experience for their running mate, the party’s nominee selected Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen. He teed up Dan Quayle and knocked him across three fairways like John Daly, but he brought nothing to the polls in November. That, arguably, was the fault of Governor Dukakis, but once bitten, twice shy, and tapping the older sage gives me pause.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 44 to 1

The race for number two is tightening, and the pundits are getting so bored with the same names that many are starting their straight-faced, cringe-inducing parlor game of “dark horse” VP candidates. Fired HP CEO Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, and even Dick Cheney have emerged in the past several weeks as possible contenders by the chatting classes jaded by the tired three-ball juggle of Charlie Crist, Mitt Romney, and Bobby Jindal  and looking to add a hatchet and a flaming steak knife or two to the act. I’m tired of re-exploring Crist, Romney, and Jindal week after week, but even on my best day I know that my Alan Keyes bet is a tough sell to the McCain Brain Trust. On the other hand, this is John McCain’s brain we’re talking about, and if one of the snarling, firebrand toadies who makes it through the door at McCain HQ grabs the candidate’s ear at just the right time, the Arizona Senator could conceivably sign off on Bo Gritz if they convince McCain the General could deliver Idaho, Montana, and Terri Schiavo’s family and put him over 270.

Bobby Jindal – Governor, Louisiana: We’ve all been getting a little disoriented at the smell of $4.00-plus per gallon gas, but Governor Jindal is starting to lose brain cells with an audible Jiffy Pop staccato. He was proud to note that, in spite of the disasters of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, there had been no major offshore spills in the waters around his state. Unfortunately, according the the Minerals Management service, there were in fact 124 major Gulf oil spills resulting from the two hurricanes, “worse than the worst-case scenario,” the study said. No major oil spills. And not to gild the soiled lily or anything, but there were in fact 113 oil platforms totally destroyed and 44 offshore spills off Louisiana alone. His candor on his forays into amateur exorcism is brave, but it’s unclear what that experience would bring to the Oval Office, as, last I checked, there was no President’s Council On Metaphysical Fitness.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 50 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/16/2008): 45 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/2/2008): 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/17/2008): 3 to 1

Charlie Crist – Governor, Florida: Bad times for Good Time Charlie. The man from the land of the Orange Bowl with the unnervingly orange tan has had something of a reversal of fortune the last few weeks. After his longtime opposition to offshore oil drilling, Governor Crist last week joined the can’t-buy-a-drill crowd in the Republican party who have reflexively cited tapping coastal oil reserves that the oil companies still haven’t done despite their longtime claim on 68 million acres of those offshore reserves, and 8.3 million acres of reserves within the eastern Gulf were last year opened for drilling. Between that and the real estate and budgetary woes in Florida, Crist’s approval ratings have dropped into negative territory for the first time in his eighteen months filling Jeb Bush’s shoes. according to a recent Zogby poll. That said, Florida is still one of the big daddies that McCain has to win, and the Golden Brown Child is still McCain’s best pick.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 4 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/16/2008): Even money
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/2/2008): 1.5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/19/2008): 1.5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/2008): 2 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line  (4/14/2008): 3 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (2/18/2008): 6 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/31/2008):4 to 1

Tim Pawlenty – Governor, Minnesota: The Atlantic’s Senior Editor Andrew Sullivan has already picked Barack Obama as the Dems’ pick when the Illinois Senator was being obscured by the blinding light of Hillary’s universal anointment, and John McCain as the GOP nominee when the Arizona Senator was accepting coach flight bumps for a free room at the Columbus Red Roof Inn and a $200 American Airlines credit. Sullivan weighed in this week that McCain’s pick of Governor Pawlenty is “already made.” Sitting in my sweltering one-bedroom apartment, I’m not one to criticize a senior editor of such an esteemed publication as The Atlantic, but Minnesota hasn’t gone blue since 1972, when George McGovern couldn’t have beaten Richard Nixon with Jesse Ventura in his corner, much less Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy (the only reason he avoided a 50-state sweep was Sargent Shriver and the Massachusetts hegemony of the Kennedys, and the lingering suspicion amongst the state Kennedyscenti that Richard Nixon may have had someone on payroll perched behind the grassy knoll. On the other hand, according to many Evangelicals, Pawlenty plays the Christ card better than anyone this side of five-time World Series of Poker winner, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson. The Christians are looking for somewhere to go this year, and try as he might, the coarse and short-tempered McCain can’t go religious without eventually losing his cool and stomping on the Second Commandment.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 15 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/30/2008): 10 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (2/18/2008): 2 to 1

Nevertheless, all eyes are on him as he makes the first big decision of what could be an Obama Administration and choosing who is going to ride in his rumbleseat on the way to the White House.

Evan Bayh – Governor, Indiana: Uncle. This is where I jump ship, I’m afraid. This was a smart pick before the Senate got so very serious. The Democrats should win handsomely this fall, but a ginormous and filibuster- and cloture-proof Senate majority is more important than ever. No Senate seat is expendable, and if the Dems sacrifice this one in the interests of winning Indiana and possibly Ohio, they are guaranteed to lose one Senate seat, and that’s unacceptable in any equation. Na-na-na-na, hey hey…you know the rest. But this is still sorely tempting. He could very well win Indiana for the Dems, and if it’s close…well, what’s 57 Senate seats versus 56? If it means the Presidency?
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 19 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/9/08): 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/26/01): 5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/12/08): 2 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/08): 4 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/14/08): 8 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/31/08): 15 to 1

Hillary Clinton – Senator, New York: Three words. Patti. Solis. Doyle. That Senator Obama took Hillary’s former campaign chief who allegedly left under rancid circumstances, and preemptively put her in charge of his would-be Vice President’s office, there could be no bigger fuck-you to his storied primary challenger. A Vice President gets the right to choose his or her Chief of Staff. That Obama chose his future VP’s own means only one thing: That Veep ain’t going to be Hillary. And he doesn’t want her anyway, because it’s going to mean he gets a sullen, curmudgeonly Bill Clinton as well, and the ex-Pres is going to be sticking his bulbous nose into every affair of state. Can you imagine what nightmare that would be for President Obama? Every morning, he’s going to wake up and pick up his Washington Post and New York Times and find them already highlighted, annotated, and dog-eared, with copious and overzealous notes written in the margins–and this will have happened hours before President Obama’s Vice President will have awakened. It will have been her goddamned husband. The right-of-first-refusal is gone; Barack Obama has made up his mind.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 144 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: (6/9/08): 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/26/01): 16 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/12/08): 14 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/08): 9 to 1

Bill Richardson – Governor, New Mexico: Still one of my favorite dark horses. But brown-on-brown, this is irresistible racist fodder to the morons out there, who are still aplenty. I’d like to believe otherwise, but we may not be that far removed from Plessy v. Ferguson when it comes to electing two brown men to the top two offices in the United States. That’s very sad if I’m right, because Bill Richardson is one of the smartest and most-qualified politicians who has walked this terra firma in our lifetime. I heard one comment a week or so ago that Richardson’s involvement in the Wen Ho Lee affair could be a dealbreaker, but that’s so Inside Baseball to most Americans that people are more likely to disqualify him for the silly beard he grew after he dropped out of the Presidential campaign (though, I have to say, he’s made it work). So, he moves up a few notches from two weeks ago. This guy would be an outstanding second-part of the ticket. One caveat: By a number of accounts, this is yet another randy Democratic Bill who is a White House sex scandal waiting to happen.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 8 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/9/08): 10 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (2/18/08): 40 to 1

Tim Kaine – Governor, Virginia: This one’s a strong late-comer, and he was a last-minute addition to the paddock since Ohio’s Ted Strickland gave his not-if-this-were-the-last-custodial-job-on-Earth refusal to even consider the position. It only makes sense: He’s a Democratic Governor in a tight race and from an unbelievably coveted state–the Democrats have not won Virginia since 1964. There’s a prominent Mother Jones study out that suggest that says a home state favorite son chosen as a Vice Presidential nominee can only be expected to sway the vote by 0.5-1.0 percent. But Virginia is damned close, and this is one race where a local boy could make a difference.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 4 to 1

Mitt Romney – Multi-millionaire, Massachusetts: Back in March, I called this one a shotgun marriage that might need to happen. All the vitriol of the winter campaign is evaporated by now, much like John McCain’s erstwhile position on torture which he used like a cudgel on Romney just months ago, and only weeks before he voted against the anti-torture bill in February. McCain probably still harbors a vague hatred of him, but amidst the ideological whiplash of the last four months, a reconciliation between the two doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone. There’s a library of debate footage that the Dems are waiting to use against McCain if he taps Romney as his number #2, but as has been fairly clear to this point, the fact that digital video and YouTube exist in the modern political world has been entirely lost on John McCain. He makes this pick at his peril. but lately that describes very nearly everything that comes out of his mouth. And he still hasn’t had to pay a price for it yet, so maybe he’s oiling the Mitt for a comeback.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 6 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/3/2008): 8 to 1

Charlie Crist – Governor, Florida: Another week, and Charlie’s still in the lead. He’s young and handsome, and no candidate in his right mind wants to leave Florida to chance. Unless Obama selects Bill Nelson, and he probably won’t, because Governor Crist is too hot a property for a Republican Presidential nominee to pass up, McCain’s ticket to win Florida rests on Charlie Crist. Never mind that he’s probably gay, but that will come out during the campaign, and that will make things really interestning.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: Even money
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/2/2008): 1.5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/19/2008): 1.5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/2008): 2 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line  (4/14/2008): 3 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (2/18/2008): 6 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/31/2008):4 to 1

Joseph Lieberman – Senator, Connecticut: After his derisive comments about Obama’s speech before AIPAC last week (a speech that earned the newly-minted Democratic Presidential nominee a standing ovation), Barack took the former Democratic running mate aside in the Senate chamber and bitch-slapped him out of the Democratic clubhouse once and for all. Though he’s still officially caucusing with the Democrats, he’s about as welcome at any Democratic function as O.J. Simpson would have been at Mezzaluna after his acquittal in 1996. There’s talk of Joe attending the GOP Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul this September, and he says he’s willing to speak if asked, but he’s taking his newfound independent status to a perverse degree, sharing the stage with McCain’s former spiritual mentor, Pastor John Hagee. It’s not so much that Lieberman seems to be having difficulty choosing a side, but it does appear he’s incapable of standing with anyone without answering the urge to loose any salvo of flatulence, no matter how rank and no matter how close the company he’s keeping at the present time. I’m not a psychologist, but he seems bent on becoming his own one-man diaspora.
VeepsBlog Line 2008: 140 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/2/2008): 80 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/19/2008): 5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/17/2008): 14 to 1

Bobby Jindal – Governor, Louisiana: If you believe his exorcism yarn, then the power of Christ obviously compels him, and that might help McCain with the religious right, especially the Catholics, but the problem is…there’s his exorcism yarn. Bobby Jindal is still a much-tounted Wunderkind of the party, but his previous written candor isn’t going to help him as a sensible counterweight to the increasingly unhinged Senator McCain in the fall. In fairness, we all found ourselves involved in some crazy shit in college, but I never felt the force of Satan sitting on my chest. “Though I could find no cause for my chest pains, I was very scared of what was happening to me and Susan. I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself.” Granted, that’s a little more profound than my college recollections of, “Dude, I was so effing hammered,” but just the same, it’s not the kind of thing you want out there in the public record. It could be taken as a profound and inspiring tale of a young Hindu man’s cathartic embrace of Christianity, but when you pair him with a nominee whose mental stability is already suspect, this isn’t going to help win a significant amount of votes in the American Breadbasket. Besides, this is the American Breadbasket we’re talking about here, and there are enough of them who will get nervous about the fact that he’s really brown.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 45 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (6/2/2008): 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/17/2008): 3 to 1

Alan Keyes – former Congressman, Illinois: According to his Web site, he’s pro-life, pro-family, pro-security, pro-economy, and pro-sovereignty. Unfortunately, he’s anti-Republican and just renounced his membership in the party to join the Constitution Party as their Presidential candidate. He’s got legs, though, and he’s just crazy enough to entice the imagination of the seemingly-confused Senator McCain, who’s looking to harness the Libertarians, the independents, and the pro-sovereignty crowd. Ordinarily this is where I would confess that I was just kidding, but I don’t think I’d be surprised at any pick the Senator makes this summer, short of David Duke.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 12 to 1

TRUE CONCESSIONS: Between a combination of campaign fatigue, a full social calendar, and the free pass that Hillary Clinton afforded all of us by bowing out of the race and giving Barack Obama his due, I took four days off after the last primaries, and this is my first day back on this page after Senator Clinton’s bow-out on Saturday. Hillary gave it her all, and comported herself horribly at times in her nearly 17-month cage-match battle for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency Of The United States, and in the end, she almost took this fight to overtime. She would still be horrible if she would have stuck to her guns and taken this battle to its bloodiest end in Denver, as she threatened at least as recently as last Tuesday night, but she didn’t.

I don’t need to revisit most of the critical things I’ve said about her here the last four months, because even though she came very close, in the end she didn’t torch the barn just because Dad didn’t give her her favorite pony. she did the good thing.

This was no small thing. Never mind that she’s human and, no matter how desperately she comported herself at times, she fought with every fiber of her being, and when you lose after giving every atom of yourself, that’s a blow. But more significantly, this is a woman who isn’t used to losing, whether in her own pursuits or in support of her husband, who has so often been his own and their worst enemy. Regardless of everything that comes at them, the Clintons don’t lose.

Usually.

She came into this race when even before she declared in January 2007 she was the anointed nominee and the wife of the biggest rock star in the Democratic Party. And she got sandbagged and lost. Like Al Gore in 2000 when he treated Bill Clinton–the most popular politician in America and the last two-term Democratic President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt–like he’d been caught with Jon Benet Ramsey’s DNA on a chloroform-soaked towel in his glovebox, Hillary has to deal with the consequences of her miscalculations, and that a bad judgement or two kept her a hair’s breadth from the greatest job in the world.

She didn’t capture the popular imagination in Iowa. She didn’t recant her vote to go to war in 2002. She hired Mark Penn who came recommended as the biggest (if most compromised) PR genius that a huge campaign war chest with little concern about the popular perception could buy, and he proved the worst executive decision since Michael Eisner hired Michael Ovitz to head Disney. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Penn spent his time as Clinton’s head strategist manning his Blackberry keeping attention on his Burson Marsteller clients and earning his $18 million dollar salary from the Clinton campaign by checking his emails from them when he had time and tossing off bullet points culled from Theodore White’s The Making Of The Presidency, 1960 to justify his position, since he was sure that Hillary’s nomination was a given, and he could show up drunk if he wanted to and there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d lose.

Worst of all, and this was mostly his bad, they didn’t plan on what they’d do after February 5th if they didn’t cinch the win on Super Tuesday. And they didn’t. It was Mark Penn, in fact, who postulated in one early campaign meeting that she would nail the nomination with California’s 441 delegates. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the the winner didn’t take all, and that with proportional representation, Hillary wouldn’t win anything close to California’s 441 delegates. As dumb as the things as I’ve done at my day job, I’ve never been that stupid, and I’m only making $16 an hour, not $18 million for less that a year’s work.

Politics is a game of inches, and it all goes back to strategies scripted before that final goal-line push is made. Hillary was an able quarterback, but she had bad coaches, and didn’t have the confidence and judgment to call in her own plays when her opponent was picking up more yards.

Given the political histories of Israel, Great Britain, Pakistan, and other countries, America is overdue for a female President. But it’s not her. At the end of the day, she got beat by the better candidate, who just happened to be a black man.

She lost. And she ultimately ended it honorably. She lost the conference championship, but good on her in the end because she’s doing the right thing and putting all her support behind her erstwhile opponent in the Super Bowl. She’ll be fine in the Senate, as a possible Supreme Court Justice, but as a Vice President? Well, let’s get on with our bi-weekly prognostication of the Democratic possibles.

Evan Bayh – Governor, Indiana: I’m not bailing on this pick yet, but I’m close. Make no mistake, Evan Bayh is smart, clean, and with military bonafides given his seat on the Senate Intelligence and the Senate Armed Forces Committee, he isn’t a nancy liberal Democrat. He’s got old-school Democratic cachet in a very Red state. But it’s a Red state with a Red governor and he gets to appoint a U.S. Senator if they lose one to the Vice Presidency. Last I checked, regardless of the taint cast upon the Republican brand, Mitch Daniels wasn’t one to reach across the aisle and toss that kind of apple to a Democrat, no matter how beneficient a self-preserving Republican might be in this very Republican year. Besides, Daniels isn’t up for re-election until 2010. There’s also the recent Mother Jones analysis that says that an in-state candidate, regardless of party, can only hope to add 0.3% of the state’s popular vote for their favorite son. That might swing a big johnson in Ohio, but it’s probably a loser in the Hoosier. This is still a reluctant and long good Bayh, though.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/26/01): 5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/12/08): 2 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/08): 4 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/14/08): 8 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/31/08): 15 to 1

Hillary Clinton – Senator, New York: She was very gregarious and sincere in her concession, and I have no doubt she’ll work her tail off for Senator Obama in the fall, and I don’t even think her hesitance to concede quickly enough will kill her, nor will RFK or “he’s not a Muslim as far as I know” or any of her other self-serving gaffes during the primary campaign. What will? Bill. Never mind that he’s a half-empty glass of melted ice compared to the cool Mojito he was in 1992 and 1996, he’s very nearly been Roger Clinton to Hillary’s run this year. A recent Todd Purdum article in  Vanity Fair suggested it might be some side-effect of his 2004 bypass surgery and the post-op meds he’s had to take, but whatever the case, he’s become in his short-tempered latest act Hillary’s biggest embarassment. Besides, the last thing Barack Obama wants is a testy, bored Bill Clinton in jams and a Razorbacks tee-shirt coming around his office every morning asking what the hell is taking him so long to approve the F-22 for sale to Israel. No one needs that. But she did give a gracious concession speech, and she’s got a hell of a lot of angry women to mollify.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: (5/26/08): 16 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: (5/12/08): 14 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/08): 9 to

Charlie Crist – Governor, Florida: I’m not budging on this one. Charlie was at the barbecue and most likely got the plate with the biggest slab of meat. Unfortunately, that’s probably a poor choice of words, given the enduring “is he or isn’t he?” gay flap about Florida’s seemingly-confirmed bachelor governor. Only his hairdresser knows for sure, and his hair looks fabulous. He’s been protesting a bit too much lately, pulling a Rock Hudson and allowing an oily GOP operative to actively circulate a video of him canoodling with a hot, apparently non-SheMale brunette in an elevator. I don’t care if he’s gay, and if he is I wish he’d be man enough to come out, but the taint of Larry Craig, Mark Foley, et. al. notwithstanding, the GOP propaganda machine will disseminate enough denial in the interim to effectively kill this as a campaign issue. His positives are too high. The road to the White House goes through Florida, and Obama definitely has inroads to make with Latinos and the Jewish. Crist rules Florida with one of the highest gubernatorial approval ratings in the land.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 1.5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/19/2008): 1.5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (4/28/2008): 2 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line  (4/14/2008): 3 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (2/18/2008): 6 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/31/2008):4 to 1

Joseph Lieberman – Senator, Connecticut: He’s running out of reservations from which to stray. In the last several years, Senator Lieberman has turned queering his patch into something on the Tourette’s spectrum, and he’s done it again, accepting an invitation to share a podium with one of Senator McCain’s disgraced clergymen, Pastor John Hagee. Hagee has, of course, called the Catholic Church “the Great Whore” and invoked Hitler and a vengeful homophobic God in just a few of his most-publicized inflammatory declarations, and even Version.2008 John McCain, who hasn’t met a far-right position he doesn’t like, has had a rare moment of clarity and repudiated Hagee’s remarks. That isn’t stopping Lieberman from accepting an invitation from Mr. Hagee to speak at a pro-Israel conference in July. Lieberman’s home-state Hartford Courant is treating Lieberman’s RSVP as if they’d just found out about their son’s NAMBLA membership. He had a real future in the GOP after he betrayed his party, but that just went south faster than the Seattle SuperSonics
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 80 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (5/19/2008): 5 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/17/2008): 14 to 1

Sarah Palin – Governor, Alaska: Whoa, not going there now. I had her plugged in and was ready to tee-off on her for her anti-environmental and anti-women’s rights stands, especially after news reports I heard as recently as today of her being McCain’s magnet for the disaffected Hillary voters. But my fresh check of Google News has reigned me in a bit, so no funny or indignation here. And not much chance for the Veep nod either, nor would she want it, I don’t imagine. Governor Palin, 44, just gave birth to a child with Down’s Syndrome. This is a tragedy, and a challenge akin to juggling 14 bowling balls, and she made her choice and I’ve got nothing but sympathy and admiration, but there’s an ominous and nauseating buzz I’m sensing in the Republican blogs, citing her knowingly giving birth to a Down’s child as confirmation of her pro-life bonafides, and what a great draw she’d be for McCain’s softer Christian constituencies. That’s a dark road someone else is probably going to go down, but I’m not touching it either way, except to say that I think she’s a bit consumed right now, and the Vice Presidency probably isn’t in her immediate future.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 40 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/17/2008): 12 to 1

Bobby Jindal – Governor, Louisiana: I’m eight ways from Sunday on this one. He’s young–really young, at 36–and, as an Indian-American, is a Big Tent favorite and doesn’t comport to any ethnic stereotype that even the biggest voting American knuckle-dragger has ever conjured up (they don’t even know what “vindaloo” is, much less how to spell it–how the hell are they going to be able to call that up as a pejorative?)  The Republicans have an enormous problem in the Gulf States, thanks to George Bush’s abysmal response to Hurricane Katrina and as evidenced by the recent special election in Mississippi where the Democrat, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers, defeated Republican Greg Davis, despite the overestimated star turn by Vice President Cheney. Still, McCain just got caught with his pants down assailing Obama for talking smack on Iraq even though he hasn’t been there in two years, while McCain has been talking smack on New Orleans but has only been there twice since the storm hit in 2005, when he was busy celebrating his birthday with President Bush. He talked a good game in fall 2005, but didn’t make it there until July 2007–for a fundraiser–but in the meantime had managed to vote against an additional year of unemployment benefits for people left jobless by Katrina. He made it again last month for a publicity appearance with Governor Jindal (this comes in contrast to five visits by Senator Obama during the same period). Unfortunately, lobbyists in the McCain campaign have been leeching up to the surface like water-table toxins, and Governor Jindal has a senior staffer who is in fact a paid energy lobbyist. That’s the kind of baggage that an already beleaguered Senator “McClean” doesn’t need.

And I don’t want to be too superficial, but I’ve never let that reticence stop me before: Looking at his most-recent publicity photo, he looks perhaps a little too boyish. He bears a striking resemblance to M. Night Shyamalan, but in his 14-year-old incarnation. Maybe we should let him get through his awkward phase and finish his last growth spurt, then we’ll talk to him about being a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
VeepsBlog 2008 Line: 12 to 1
VeepsBlog 2008 Line (3/17/2008): 3 to 1