Obama VP Announcement Imminent; McCain’s Set for August 29th

At this time tomorrow, most likely, we will officially know the identity of Obama’s VP. The big rumor right now is Joe Biden. For someone who voted for the resolution to authorize for in Iraq, has a history with plagiarism, and has said some really … racist things in the past, he’s getting rave reviews in the liberal press.

You know things are getting serious when people are already editing Wikipedia to say that he is the official Democratic VP candidate.

That said, we’ll wait for some confirmation before divind headfirst into the shallow end. But Biden’s bluntness does make some sense. And we have been very complementary of Biden’s debate skills this election. (I still don’t understand how Edwards managed to get outdebated by Cheney in 2004, although who knows, he may have been thinking of how to get a mistress at the time.)

Of course, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen was a widely praised VP choice in 1988 too. So who knows.

McCain for his part has sent out a save the date to conservative media that he will announce his VP the day after the Democratic Convention on Friday August 29.

Marc Ambinder runs down the logic:

This week, it splices into the threads of attention that Barack Obama’s campaign is sewing ahead of Obama’s announcement.

Next week, it ensures that the press pays at least mild attention to McCain.

I have to disagree. it tells the press it can ignore McCain until August 29th, which is a Friday. When the announcement is imminent but the date unclear, you get nonstop media coverage (see Obama the last few weeks). When it’s set, the media can run off and do other things knowing you won’t make waves. If McCain wanted that media coverage next week, he’d make the announcement just before the Democratic Convention, and use that week for the rollout tour. Now, any negative news about a VP is going to be breaking during the Republican Convention, providing a mixed message at best. Meanwhile, it looks like Obama will have at least a few days advance to rebut such problems and give the Convetnion planners advance news on the identity of the choice. Not to mention that McCain had a two month head start to begin with.

There’s a reason bad news always leaks on Friday: people don’t pay attenion. On one of the last Friday’s of the summer, McCain is going to fire the biggest bullet he has left? I don’t like that strategy. I think it undermines any Obama convention bounce far less than they anticipate.