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Tuesday, July 29, 2008 JOHN MCCAIN, MITT ROMNEYPawlenty or Romney?The individual who told me yesterday that he had heard McCain's pick is coming soon, and that it was Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, now tells me that McCain's list is down to Pawlenty or Mitt Romney.I urge readers to take this with the requisite caution. Neither man's schedule has had any last-minute changes or cancellations, which to me is a leading sign of an announcement being lined up. Pawlenty is still scheduled to speak before the American Legislative Exchange Council tomorrow, and Romney is on vacation in New Hampshire until next week....

As Senator Barack Obama turns to the choice of his running mate, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has emerged as one of the campaign’s potential finalists, sources familiar with conversations in Richmond and in Chicago said. Kaine, an early Obama supporter whose biography nicely dovetails with the Illinois senator’s, "ranks very, very high on the short list," said a source who has spoken recently to senior Obama aides about Kaine. Kaine "is getting a critical examination," the source said.

Has Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's chances of landing the coveted spot as Obama's Veep risen? According to stories at both The Politico and the Washington Post Kaine has risen to the level of serious contender, along with Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. The WaPo story has close Kaine associates acknowledging that Kaine has told them that he has had "very serious" conversations with Obama about joining the ticket.

Announcement coming “very soon.” Geraghty notes that Pawlenty’s still scheduled to give a routine speech on Wednesday, but TNR noted over the weekend that he’s already pulled out of one event and his plans for this week are suddenly and suspiciously hazy. See this recent item from Marc Ambinder, too, passing along a rumor that McCain was planning to meet with his inner circle about VP yesterday. And then of course there’s that CNN item claiming an attendee at a fundraiser heard McCain say conservatives are “really going to like” Pawlenty. Put it all together and today’s scurrilous veep du...

Obama won't pick VP for 'funeral duty' From correspondents in Washington July 28, 2008 05:42am Article from: Agence France-Presse DEMOCRATIC White House hopeful Barack Obama said today he will pick a vice-presidential running mate who will "help me govern" and not just somebody "who I send off to go to funerals". Obama, in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press, said his vice-presidential choice would be "somebody who can help me govern, who I can work with, who has a shared vision". "I'm not interested in a vice president who I send off to go to funerals," he said. "I...

John McCain and Barack Obama need to err on the side of caution in choosing their running-mates THE foundations of American capitalism may be going up in flames. But no amount of dismal economic news can dull the appetite of Washingtonians for playing one of the oldest games in town—picking the candidates’ running-mates. Every other day seems to bring news of one potential candidate rising (Al Gore is flavour of the moment on the Democratic side) or another one flaming out (Carly Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, doomed her campaign for the Republican slot when she complained loudly that...

In this week’s McCain vs. Obama, we look at the vice presidential selections. Today, we begin with a look at Obama’s options. I’ll offer some analysis of outlier options for Obama, and then I’ll give my top five picks for the Democratic Party’s nominee. Mind you, these represent my belief in who would be the best pick for Obama, not who I think he is most likely to pick. On the one hand, the Obama camp clearly believes that theirs is a transcendent candidacy. The campaign that claimed the Moses-like quality of halting the rising of the seas and announced...

BIDEN RISING IN VEEPSTAKES June 14, 2008 -- BEFORE multimillionaire Democratic power broker James A. Johnson quit as Sen. Barack Obama's chief vice presidential screener, the name that came to the fore in his internal discussions was 65-year-old, six-term Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, made a good impression in his losing bid for the presidential nomination this year. The downside on him is that he talks too much. But he provides expertise and experience in national security that Obama lacks and, as a Catholic, adds cultural diversity to the ticket. A footnote: Presidential...

Sen. John McCain praised Mayor Bloomberg yesterday - talking up Hizzoner as a strong candidate for governor and refusing to rule him out as a vice presidential candidate. Asked during an interview with The Post whether the term-limited billionaire mayor should be able to seek re-election to a third term, he said there's been "some speculation" about Bloomberg trying to move to Albany. "Do I think he could serve the state of New York and the country well? Of course," McCain said, during a sitdown at the New York Hilton. He was also asked about having the mayor as his...

Why does Barack Obama have trouble finding untainted members for his three person panel vetting vice presidential candidates? Eric Holder vetted the March Rich pardon for Bill Clinton. That bad judgment should disqualify him. Now comes news that a second member of the panel, James Johnson -- former head of Fannie Mae -- received a sweetheart "mortgage" from disgraced Countrywide Finance, one of the major sources of our mortgage crisis . Johnson was forced out of Fannie Mae when a regulator found the company had violated accounting rules in an effort to conceal fluctuations in profit and had failed to...

WASHINGTON - Finding a running mate tops the summer to-do lists of John McCain and Barack Obama, and each needs to decide what he wants as much as who he wants. Are they out to offset their own perceived weaknesses, or reinforce an area of strength? Are they looking for someone from a particular region or demographic niche? How much should personal chemistry count in the equation? It's all about achieving balance. The end of the Democratic primary season this past week touched off considerable debate about the relative merits of an Obama-Clinton "dream ticket." Obama could decide to pick...

On the heels of Thursady night's meeting between Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, talks of a dream ticket continue. But with the choice of vice president still up in the air, local lawmakers have not ruled out a possible Kansas vice president. State Representative Raj Goyle believes that Sebelius would be a perfect choice for Senator Obama...

MSNBC is reporting that Obama will have a 3-person crew searching for a vice-presidential pick, and one person will be Caroline Kennedy.

My goodness, folks, this Hillary Comment business is starting to become a REAL International Burn Burner right now. This is moving hard and fast in the Japanese press here. Here is my synopsis from the Japanese major (conservative) daily Sankei Shimbun, with it's rich and intriguing headine. (below) (and URL link to original Japanese language article). Japanese Middle-of-the-Road and Left-Oriented papers and outlets are also running with it as we speak.

(NOTE: This is a repost of an article that was recently posted here by another forum member. I had it pulled for copyright infringement. I am the true author of the article [I wrote it on my political blog] and am reposting it here because it seems there are many people who are interested in discussing this. Please do not steal other people's intellectual property.) ------- Ever since John McCain effectively clinched the Republican nomination back in February, he has had trouble staying in the headlines and getting media attention. After all, the chess match between Barack Obama and Hillary...

Ever since John McCain effectively clinched the Republican nomination back in February, he has had trouble staying in the headlines and getting media attention. After all, the chess match between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has become quite a political spectacle. However, McCain recently grabbed headlines by revealing that he was meeting with Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, and Charlie Crist at his home in Arizona. These three names are significant because they are all plausible vice presidential nominees. Thus, this meeting is seen by pundits as the first major step of the vetting process to determine McCain's vice president. I...

SPECIES STATUS: Unreliable data, threat to energy development cited. By DAN JOLING The Associated Press The State of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday. She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts.

Attention Hunter fans! He is on CSPAN for the next hour!

Just announced on WABC radio on the Larry Kudlow show by Jimmy Pettatukis--US News and a blogger, (SP) that McCain is all but a lock for VP. INfo comes from his fund raising sources. Kudlow is using the info as "breaking news" on his show which just eneded at 1:00 Pm Eastern.

Jindal: 'I'm exactly where I need to be' By Jon Ward May 5, 2008 BATON ROUGE, La. — He is the future of the Republican Party, some say, and has risen so high for the age of 36 that his name is tossed about as a vice-presidential pick. But Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he wants to keep his job, although he expects to lose popularity as he pushes his ambitious two-term plan to remake his state in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "I told the voters of Louisiana this is a historic, one-time opportunity to change our...