The Note: Weight of the Wait

August 19, 2008 -- Three questions smart Democrats are asking:

1. Where on the scale of strategy/caution/indecisiveness do we plot the fact that Sen. Barack Obama does not at this moment have a running mate? (And where on the scale of party worry/frustration/panic do Democrats stand with a new poll showing Obama facing a 2-1 gap on handling Russia?)

2. What hole in his resume will Obama seek to fill with his choice? (And how will the rollout avoid highlighting a weakness?)

3. What was in the shave ice that brought a new candidate back to the contiguous 48? (And will it wear out?)

Three questions smart Republicans are asking:

1. What is it about Sen. John McCain's scheduled visits to offshore oil rigs that causes tropical disturbances? (And how many more topical disturbances dogging McCain fundraisers?)

2. What will a fourth Woodward book on the Bush presidency mean for the man who's carrying his party banner? (And does McCain's family have any other disinherited siblings we didn't know about?)

3. Can McCain stomach the choice that probably makes the most electoral sense for him? (And/or will he test the stomach of his party base?)

Keep your mobile devices charged: Obama's running-mate decision -- as reported by The New York Times, and announced (how else?) by The Drudge Report -- is "all but settled," with the most anticipated text message since Paris had her cell stolen to come "as soon as Wednesday morning."

(But more like Friday -- when Obama is down in Chicago, and can make an easy trip to Springfield, Ill., should he feel the urge.)

We know the names by now, and so does Obama: "By all indications, Mr. Obama is likely to choose someone relatively safe and avoid taking a chance with a game-changing selection," Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny write in The New York Times. "Mr. Obama and his running mate will begin, perhaps that day, a visit to swing states. Plans call for them to be on the trail together for much of the time between the day of the announcement and the day Mr. Obama arrives in Denver, a week from Wednesday, but their most intense campaigning together will come after the convention."

ABC's Jake Tapper reports that Obama has told "less than a half dozen" of his aides whom he has picked. The announcement is expected "at the end of this week," with a swing-state tour to follow.

Unless the timing slips: "There are signs that Obama may wait to announce his choice until this weekend or just before in hopes of providing a big boost before the convention opens Monday in Denver," Dan Balz reports in The Washington Post.

Is it all about the Clintons -- even in the timing? "In addition to giving some convention-eve energy to Obama's campaign, a late-in-the-week rollout would have another benefit in the eyes of his loyalists. It could help overshadow the other dominant story heading into Denver, which is the long-running drama over how Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and Clinton's supporters will handle themselves during the week," Balz writes.

"There's an outside chance the nod could come as soon as Wednesday, but sources indicated Monday that the planning was still fluid, and later was more likely," Ken Bazinet and Michael McAuliff report in the New York Daily News.

Mark Halperin makes a pick at The Page: "Say it is so, Joe," he writes Tuesday morning.

Balz hears there's five veepstakes finalists: You know Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, Tim Kaine, and Sebelius, and toss in either Chris Dodd, Jack Reed, or Bill Richardson -- or even, just maybe, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Why is that this rumor won't go away?: "No power brokers in the Democratic Party are openly campaigning for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as their vice-presidential nominee this year, and even Mrs. Clinton's closest aides have stopped talking her up. Yet privately, some Democrats continue to see her as exactly the partner that Senator Barack Obama needs," Patrick Healy writes in The New York Times.

Why couldn't it work? "Think back to high school: In interviews on Monday, Clinton aides said they thought Mr. Obama did not like Mrs. Clinton. Clinton aides also said they thought Mr. Obama thinks Mrs. Clinton does not like him," Healy writes. "And, like him or not, she is skeptical that he can win, her aides continue to say. Bottom line, chemistry might be a problem here."

As for McCain's choice, timing is everything -- and if this schedule holds, it's all about watching the Obama bounce go flat. It's a birthday pick -- McCain turns 72 next Friday, and he doesn't want to blow out candles by himself.

"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to celebrate his 72nd birthday on Aug. 29 by naming his running mate at a huge rally in the battleground state of Ohio, Republican sources said," Politico's Mike Allen reports. "Senior Republicans are in the dark about who he'll name, although they say former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are prime contenders after a trial balloon by McCain gave him very negative feedback about the idea of picking an abortion-rights running mate such as Tom Ridge."

"I was told by the McCain folks that we should start building the troops," Alex M. Triantafilou, the chairman of the Hamilton County, Ohio, Republican Party, told ABC's Teddy Davis. "It makes sense to do it here."

(This is one way to build a crowd. And how does this bode for Rob Portman's stock?)

ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg reports that a birthday announcement is likely, but "that this date is not set in stone, and that McCain himself could always decide to announce at another time. The date and place of the announcement hinge on the choice of a V.P. -- a decision, sources say, that McCain has not yet finalized."

In case there's still an opening on the roster . . . watch the last-minute tryouts.

Sen. Biden, D-Del., arrived back from Georgia Monday, a visit that "underlined what he could bring to the Democratic ticket with Barack Obama -- long and deep experience in foreign policy, an area where Obama is relatively lacking," per The Boston Globe's Foon Rhee. (And he managed to use the word "I" 13 times in the statement he released upon his return.)

"Biden's stock reached an all-time high as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman wrapped up a visit to Georgia at the invitation of President Mikheil Saakashvili," Geoff Earle and Carl Campanile report in the New York Post.

Perhaps the biggest potential downside of Sen. Bayh, D-Ind.: Bayh "may face questions about potential conflicts of interest from his wife's work on seven corporate boards that paid her more than $837,000 last year," Bloomberg's Timothy Burger writes.

And does the man have an enemy or two? From primary night in Indiana comes this description: "To the amazement of several Clinton insiders, he sat in a holding room, hunched over a laptop, hitting the 'refresh' button over and over on a newspaper website's interactive vote tracker in a state he was supposed to dominate," Glenn Thrush and Amie Parnes write for Politico. Said one witness: "He was just waiting around like everybody else. It seemed like he didn't really have the juice we thought."