Veepweek madness

A reporter for the Washington Post hit the nail on the head when they said that speculation about who the presidential running mates were going to be had reached the point of insanity. Across the pond there is even fierce speculation about when the running mates will be announced

An announcement today by Obama would more or less fit the pattern established by the Democrats between 1988 and 2000 of announcing 6 days before the convention – in 2004 it was a full 20 days before and we are well past that point. With 13 days to go before the Republican convention, some time next week would be in keeping with previous announcement dates.

So who will the candidates choose? Your guess is as good as anyone’s. On the market betting website intrade.com Joe Biden is leading on the Democratic side. As for the GOP Mitt Romney is ahead, although there has been a sharp increase in Joe Lieberman’s price. Bear in mind, however, that the long list includes political heavyweights like Al Gore and John Kerry for the Democrats and Rudy Giuliani and Condoleeza Rice for the Republicans. And Mike Bloomberg is in the frame to be on the ballot for either party!

It really is finger in the wind time, but this writer (with his disastrous record of political predictions – I thought Davis would defeat Cameron in the intra-party race of the Davids, for instance) is finally plumping for Kathleen Sebelius to join Obama. And after thinking that Bobby Jindal might be alongside John McCain I think he is just too young (he is half McCain’s age) and the contrast would be too great, so am going for my original choice of Charlie Crist.

The problem that both these running mates would have, it has to be noted, is that neither has faced the intense glare of the national media and that a safe choice would be to go for someone that ran in the primaries or has held a nationwide office.

Note that I haven’t explained who any of these people are, or what their CVs are. You can find out more about the frontrunners quite readily on this page from the BBC online’s excellent 2008 election site.

There’s also quite a good overview of the veepstakes in the Times here