MSNBC’s First Read reports that an Obama Veep announcement may not be far off:
Turning back home, all indications are pointing to Obama’s veep pick getting announced in the 10-day window after he gets back from Europe and before the Olympics. (Maybe, given the calendar, we’re stating the obvious at this point, but everything is about timetables in the Obama campaign, right?)
As with Bob Novak’s report that McCain could name his selection this week, which has been discounted by others, some are questioning the timing of a pre-Olympics announcement from Obama:
I don’t see the unassailable logic of announcing the pick before the Olympics. Any PR bump will get stepped on by the games (unless they announce very soon after Obama gets back). Worse, the Olympic dark period will give enterprising reporters 2-3 uninterrupted weeks to look for skeletons in the veep nominee’s closet, with which they’ll pummel him/her at the convention.
Why not just save the announcement for, say, the first night in Denver? (The Olympics end the day before.) It’ll get everyone to tune in, provide a big momentum boost at the outset, and maybe drown out the lurid interest in the Obama-Clinton soap opera.
I guess one question about that comment is whether the Olympics really play into this announcement the way that some reporters seem to think they will. Yes, it’s true that much of official Washington, and thus the political world, will be shut down from the beginning of August until just before the Democratic Convention, but that’s something that happens every year in Washington and has nothing to do with the Olympics.
Yes, there will be a news glut for a few weeks, but that doesn’t mean that all of America will be giving the Olympics the attention that the media, most especially, I suspect, NBC, think or hope that they will.
For those of us who care about truly important sports, there will pennant races to worry about. For the rest of us, it will be a nice break from reality.
And if you think that Obama and McCain are just going to fade into the woodwork for two weeks starting on August 8th, you’ve got another thing coming.
