Curtains for Kaine?

Barack Obama nears his V.P. announcement

ByABC News
August 21, 2008, 8:53 PM

August 21, 2008— -- Barack Obama said on Thursday that he has settled upon a running mate.

He did not, however, reveal his selection.

The only thing that seems certain (or close to certain) at this point is that it's not Tim Kaine. The Virginia governor began referring to the process in the past tense after meeting with the presumptive Democratic nominee in Virginia.

"I've always thought it seemed a bit unlikely but I'm not going to tell you it hadn't been fun," said Kaine, per ABC News' Jen Duck.

Pressed about his use of past tense, Kaine said "I'll let you be the grammar judge although I've never been known for accuracy in grammar so it would be hard to scrutinize my grammar and make a conclusion."

Asked if he has been let in on any conversations surrounding the Democratic veepstakes, Kaine said "I'm going to let the campaign take it from here. They're going to reveal what they want to reveal when they want to reveal it."

"It's been nice to be mentioned but I'm going to let them do the heavy lifting at this point," he added.

While Kaine appears to be out of the running for VP, he played an amiable attack dog on Thursday morning television when he went after John McCain for directing a question about how many houses he owns to his staff.

"I understand that Sen. McCain was asked yesterday this question, 'how many houses do you own?,' and he couldn't answer that question. He couldn't count high enough apparently to even know how many houses he owns," said Kaine while appearing on CNN's "American Morning."

Watch it here.

The Kicker:

"I'll have my staff get to you."

--John McCain to Politico's Mike Allen when asked how many houses he and his wife own

Listen to the audio

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