Legal Commentary

Monday Night Veepstakes Thread

By Jeralyn

I'm back to thinking Sen. Barack Obama will pick Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as his running mate.

Drudge quotes a New York Times reporter as saying the announcement could come tomorrow morning, but is more likely to occur Weds. morning. A Washington Post reporter thinks Friday is more likely.

Obama will be in Virginia on Wednesday. Also significant is this WaPo article about Obama's emphasis on Virginia. While some say the Dems wouldn't have given Mark Warner the convention keynote speaker slot if the VP also was from Virginia, I think they might, given how much effort Obama is putting into registering new voters in Virginia in hopes of turning the state blue. [More...]

Since the start of the year, 202,000 people have registered to vote in Virginia. Of those, 64 percent are younger than 35, a demographic Obama expects to win handily.

State election officials and the Obama campaign expect to add tens of thousands more voters by the deadline. Fairfax County, for example, is processing, on average, 1,800 registration applications a week, county officials said recently.

And, southwestern Virginia, which is more strongly Republican, has been losing registered voters. So with more Dems and younger voters in the North and fewer Republicans in the South, perhaps the state is winnable.

Virginia has 13 electoral votes. Indiana, another red state, only has 11. Colorado and New Mexico, both tossups, together have 14.

If I were Obama, I'd be concentrating on Ohio and Florida and Michigan and their combined 64 electoral votes. Since he's not, and Colorado and New Mexico are iffy, that leaves Virginia.

It also might be why Tim Kaine doesn't have a speaking slot at the convention yet.

I don't think a candidate with foreign policy experience will be Obama's final choice. He has been campaigning on his unique inspirational brand of politics. He's selling himself and what he will do in the future, not his past accomplishments. His supporters have enthusiastically endorsed him for who he is, not what he has done. It was clear throughout the primaries that experience wasn't as important to voters as was their belief that "change", whatever that means, was necessary.

So I think Obama's choice will depend on two things: the results his campaign got from internal polling and focus groups and which candidate they think is most likely to bring home a necessary swing state.

That sure isn't Joe Biden and Delaware.

On a related note, he sure is dragging this out. They say in comedy, timing is everything. I'm wondering if he isn't waiting too long. I'm already past the point of suspense and thinking, can we please just get on with this?

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 18, 2008 (boomark / email).