Aug 22nd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
The Case Against Obama
I’m starting to have a sneaking suspicion that Barack Obama’s planning to ruin the weekend by announcing his VP choice at 5:30 PM Eastern or something and I’m not happy about it.
69 Responses to “The Case Against Obama”
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August 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I thought you dumped bad news on Fridays at 5?
And why distract from the Houses meme?
But he has to do it soon…
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
At this point (12:30 eastern), it has to be on Saturday, right? Why the hell would you announce your VP in the Friday night news window?
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
On a normal weekend, yes. But the convention starts Monday.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
The announcement has been delayed due to the need for last-minute vetting of how many houses the VP nominee has (or can be accused of having).
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I imagine he’ll just yell it out as he’s running down the hall to his motorcade “It’s Bayyyyyyyyyyhhhhh. See you Mondaaaaay!”
thesebastards.blogspot.com
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Andrew Sullivan is speculating on how cool it would be for Obama to announce his VP pick at 3:00 AM…to poke fun at the anti-Obama ad that Hillary ran concerning the 3:00AM phone call.
I wonder how that would play. On the one hand, it wouldn’t get a lot of imemdiate coverage or attention, but I could see the media referencing it over and over again over the next few months because of what a “great story” it would be.
Pros? Cons?
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
At this point, not announcing until the last minute accomplishes two things:
1) It lets the McCain house routine play without adding distraction.
2) And the additional day of speculation goads reporters to ask Dems for their guesses about VP, which gives them a chance to slip in quips about McCain’s houses.
Suck it up and make jokes about McCain looking to buy a house in the coastal regions of Arizona, better to think about how he will handle a possible international crisis on the Iraq-Pakistan border, or how he will chase down the Shia extremists in Al Qaeda, or help the poor by giving tax cuts to the rich.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Hah Hah
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Jim: The last thing Obama wants to do is alienate the Hillary/PUMA people. He needs to get them on board as soon as possible in order to win this thing. Notifying people at 3am would be a giant poke in the eye.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Because you never want to “step” on a story when your opponent is getting hit and scrambling to rebound!
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
i think a 3am announcement would only be worth it if HRC was the pick. she’s kindof the key to the joke.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Re: cleek’s comment
What do you think about announcing at 3:00 AM if he’s picking Hillary? It would be funny if nothing else. It would also be a nice step towards defusing predictable Republican attacks by echoing some of the not-nice things that Hillary said about Obama in the primary.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Previous question was directed at taskerbliss.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Matthew at comment #5 is funny.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Chet Edwards, anyone?
This seems to be news? I haven’t seen any commenting on it yet.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
“At this point (12:30 eastern), it has to be on Saturday, right? Why the hell would you announce your VP in the Friday night news window?”
Yup.
Once noon passed on Thursday, the next good moment became Saturday morning.
The Springfield event is at noon. I’d guess the text comes through at 10:30am.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I’d be shocked if it was Chet Edwards. He’s a complete unknown nationally and Obama is announcing too late to really brand him before the Democratic convention. To me that just smells like a red herring to get some additional media coverage by throwing out an unconventional name.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Sorry to spam the thread, but to me the absolute funniest selection Obama could make would be to pick Clinton.
As in, BILL Clinton.
Seriously, who wouldn’t bust a gut laughing at the look on Hillary’s face if Obama made THAT selection?
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Maybe they had already printed up a bunch of Obama/Edwards stuff before the love-child scandal broke and decided not to let that all go waste.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Would love Biden or Chet Edwards. Saw a story about Edwards a few weeks back as a possible pick, I think spurred by some Pelosi comment.
I was recently reading Lawrence Wright’s memoir about growing up in Dallas in the ’60s. Even as a Texan, LBJ was almost mob-attacked by friggin’ PTA moms during an appearance in Dallas as the VP candidate.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Veep Dump?
5:30 on a Friday is usually when you see agencies putting out their weekly press releases they hope nobody pays attention to. Just ahead of the weekend, too late for the networks to pick them up for the 6 o’clock news, etc… My guess is he’ll announce between 2-3PM. That builds the TV audience for the news, starts the Internet buzz while people are still at work in front of their PCs, and gives the campaign enough time to get early reaction material to anticipate what the news and cable talking heads are going to throw at them. I’d be really surprised and kind of dumbfounded if they wait until rush hour.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
What do you think about announcing at 3:00 AM if he’s picking Hillary?
Actually, this is probably the only case where it is funny. They could show a little webcast or video of him calling her at 3AM, and her being completely alert and surprised that he is up (in a friendly way). They could each say something nice about each other, and go on.
It would soften the earlier attacks, humanize them both, and make it clear that they are now on the same page.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Relax and go have a latte, Matt. Obama clearly is milking Housegate as much as he can today and will send out the vp text message/e-mail tomorrow.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Jim: I agree with cleek that the 3am announcement would play If HRC was on the ticket; but reports are that she was never even vetted by the Obama camp.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
“To me (Chet Edwards) just smells like a red herring to get some additional media coverage by throwing out an unconventional name.”
It’s a painless kowtow to Pelosi.
Nothing more and nothing less.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Every hour that passes makes Biden less likely, no?
Why would Team Chicago telegraph the pick 96 hours in advance?
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
As in, BILL Clinton.
It’s a nice thought, but since he’s ineligible to be President again, he’s ineligible to be Vice President.
He would make a good Secretary of State or U.N. Ambassador, though.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
That would be unconstitutional.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Actually, I’ve been watching the breathless folks over at CNN all morning, and the Obama VP Drama has eclipsed the McCain homes story.
So at this point, the waiting game alone has stepped on Monopoly-Gate. Obama should just go ahead and announce so he can have his VP whip up the story again.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I think Clinton actually could serve two years as president before he had to resign. You can serve ten years, if you two of them complete someone else’s term.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
He’s gonna drunk-text the nation around midnight. It’ll say “my vp pic is hak jfjdj”
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Chet Edwards is a no-go. I think too many people would assume the Edwards in “Obama-Edwards” would be John, and that is a big negative now.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Every hour that passes makes Biden less likely, no?
Every hour that passes makes every name that’s been mooted less likely. Biden, Bayh, Sebelius, Kaine.
Someone mentioned Howard Dean the other day, which would be an interesting out-of-nowhere pick. He’s got the name recognition, anti-war bonafides, and Washington-outsider reputation…
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
“Every hour that passes makes every name that’s been mooted less likely. Biden, Bayh, Sebelius, Kaine.”
We disagree on the commonly accepted meaning of “mooted”.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
“Every hour that passes makes every name that’s been mooted less likely. Biden, Bayh, Sebelius, Kaine”
And on the merits, I disagree about Bayh, Sebelius, and Kaine.
Biden has been the “official float” since Tuesday. That’s a different category than the normal short-list names.
Historically, the “official float” doesn’t get chosen, but one of the short-list names often does.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Obama has a big event in Springfield Il tomorrow, I think that answers the big question.
Mayor Quimby for VP
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Try obamanelson.com
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Petey, how do you mean “official float”?
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Bill C. himself has talked about a possible ambiguity in the Constitution regarding whether a former president can serve as vice president — no one ineligible to the presidency is eligible to the vice presidency, but the 22nd Amendment only says no person shall be *elected* to the presidency more than twice, which might mean that twice-elected presidents are not eligible to be elected president, but could serve as president if they reached that office another way (such as by succession from the vice presidency or speakership). If so, they are not technically ineligible to the presidency, and therefore would be eligible to the vice presidency.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Dean’s an interesting thought. I think for shock value, it would go over great. It would also reinforce America that Obama is the guy that will get us out of Iraq. The media would love the story.
On the flip side, I can foresee approximately 12,458,192 different repetitions of the Dean Scream in Republican attack ads between now and election day, and I also think it wouldn’t go over well with the Clinton folks. Many of them thought that Dean, Pelosi, etc. were biased towards Obama in the primary. They might think of it as a slap in the face.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I hope he does a VP dump at 5:30 eastern. That would be funny.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:59 pm
“Petey, how do you mean “official float”?
When folks like Halperin and Ambinder call their high-level Democratic sources, since Tuesday, they’re being told that Biden is the guy.
That’s why things are trading the way they are on Intrade.
Historically, the “official float” is a fake-out. In the days leading up to the VP announcement in ‘04, Gephardt was the official float, for example.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
If it IS Hillary, how about this:
Obama and Hillary should run a joint ad that goes like this:
Open Scene: Hillary Clinton hard at work for America late in the evening hours. It’s nearing 3:00, and her phone rings.
Hillary: This is Hillary.
Obama: How did I know you’d be up? This is Barack.
Hillary: Barack! What a pleasant surprise. I didn’t think you would be calling at 3:00 AM. (A play on the nasty 3:00 AM red telephone ad that Hillary ran.)
Obama: Well, I’m ready to lead in an emergency, and the thought of McCain getting into the White House and continuing the last eight years of the failed Bush policies certainly qualifies.
Hillary: You can say that again. It is hard to believe that the media still gets away with painting him as a Maverick when he voted with Bush 95% of the time last year and 100% of the time this year.
Obama: That’s when he shows up at all. He hasn’t cast a vote in the Senate since April.
Hillary: So we’re agreed, we need to get you into the White House. How can I help?
Obama: Come be my VP. America needs us both.
Hillary: I thought you’d never asked. I’d be honored.
It’s funny. It gets some pertinent points out about McCain’s allegience to McCain’s policy positions and it helps put the nastiness of the Democratic primary behind them. It also is a great story that the media would eat up, particularly if it first ran, literally, at 3:00 AM in swing states.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
about McCain’s allegience to McCain’s policy positions
should read
about McCain’s allegience to Bush’s policy positions
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I was thrilled to vote Hillary into the Senate, but she pretty much annoyed me during the primaries. However, if Jim Crozier’s scenario in comment #43 actually played out, I could see my heart totally warming up for her again. I seriously doubt that it will happen, mind you, but what a nice thought. (and giggle)
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I was about to say, Jim. McCain has shown absolutely no allegiance to McCain’s policy positions.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
At 3 A.M. we’ll all learn it’s Hillary. It’s the Bennett Brauer strategy.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
How is that going to ruin MY’s weekend? I don’t get it unless he has some inside info that it will be a shocking surprise that will rock the world and require non stop blogging. Someone like say Bill Clinton or the Reverend Wright.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Came… and went.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
A Kansas printing company is producing Obama/Bayh ‘08 bumper stickers.
Story here.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:05 am
As in, BILL Clinton.
http://www.piriketseverler.tr.gg/Galeri/index.htm
November 25th, 2008 at 10:19 am
hımm,It’s funny. It gets some pertinent points out about McCain’s allegience to McCain’s policy positions and it helps put the nastiness of the Democratic primary behind them.
http://makkale.blogcu.com/100-flickr-araclari_29689651.html
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