Campaigns try to get timing right on VP choices
Timetables in question with Olympics
WASHINGTON - The guessing game about vice presidential selection normally revolves around one question: Who will it be?
But this year, with the Beijing Olympics expected to dominate media coverage next month and with the party conventions later than usual, there is nearly as much attention on another question: When will the announcements come?
Already, one leading pundit, columnist Robert Novak, gained widespread attention when he suggested - incorrectly it turned out - that Republican John McCain would name his running mate last week. Novak later said he had probably been used by campaign officials to float a story to grab attention during Democrat Barack Obama's overseas trip.
But some analysts now say McCain might gain more of an advantage by waiting until the last possible moment. Obama must announce his pick by the time of the Democratic convention during the last week of August. McCain can wait until the following week, when the Republican convention is held.
Historically, the candidate who has the later convention gets the later "bounce" in the polls. As a result, some political analysts and commentators say it would not make sense for McCain to give away the vice presidential bounce by announcing his pick before Obama.
"Why surrender that shot of presumably favorable coverage when you are running close, or in some polls, ahead?" asked presidential historian Richard Norton Smith, a scholar-in-residence at George Mason University. "And let's face it, why is anyone going to pay any attention to the Republican convention otherwise?"
Smith said it would make more sense for McCain to wait and see what the landscape looks like after the Democratic convention and Obama's running mate selection. That will also give McCain extra time to vet his prospects, who are believed to include former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, whose state is hosting the GOP convention.
McCain, himself, said Monday night on CNN that he would announce his pick "as soon as the process is completed" and vowed that "it won't be driven by any other factors - the Olympics or any other. It will be strictly on when we can arrive at a conclusion."
While McCain has steadfastly refused to name names, he did give some insight into his thinking when asked at a campaign event Monday night in Bakersfield, Calif., how his search was going. "There's a lot of highly qualified people in our party," he said, according to media accounts. "Governors, senators, businesspeople . . . you need someone who shares your values and priorities."
Obama, meanwhile, may have incentive to name his running mate earlier than usual due to the Olympics, which begin Aug. 8 and end Aug. 24, only a day before the Democratic convention begins. With the vice presidential buzz growing louder by the day, he huddled Monday and yesterday with advisers in charge of researching potential candidates. The
Appearing yesterday on a local radio show, Kaine did not confirm or deny that he has provided personal information to the Obama campaign as part of a vetting process. "Those conversations are between me and the campaign," Kaine said.
Obama, likewise, has kept his short list private, with the exception of former rival Hillary Clinton. Still, he said on Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press" that he plans to pick "somebody with independence, who's willing to tell me where he thinks or she thinks I'm wrong." He also suggested he is leaning against a Washington insider.
The Olympics has already thrown off the usual convention schedule. Typically, conventions have occurred several weeks apart. But this year, they are separated by just one weekend. It is widely believed that neither campaign wants to announce its vice presidential nominee during the Olympics.
"It's more a product of the cable news cycle than anything that the campaign has said," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said yesterday.
In recent elections, presidential candidates have tended to announce their running mates in the days before the convention. In 2004, Senator John F. Kerry recorded the biggest gap ever between the announcement and the convention when he selected Senator John Edwards of North Carolina 20 days before the Democratic gathering in Boston.
Mark Mellman, Kerry's pollster during the campaign, said the thinking behind such an early announcement was that "you want to get a lot of positive press for as long a time as possible." To build interest, Kerry kept his selection under wraps, leading to days of speculation.
As for the current campaign, Mellman said that "as a planner, you would probably say not to do it during the Olympics." But the lateness of this year's conventions - leaving only two months before Election Day - may prompt the candidates to announce their running mates soon.
By comparison, in 1988, Democrat Michael Dukakis named Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas as his running mate before the convention in mid-July. With this year's conventions so late, Dukakis said yesterday, it would "make sense" to announce a running mate "earlier rather than later, assuming you have come to the right conclusion" about the choice.
"There are a lot of reasons why you want to" name a running mate early, the former Massachusetts governor said. "You can begin campaigning in advance of the convention, meld your staff, and put the operation in place."
Analysts interviewed yesterday said it is most important to fully vet a candidate.
A number of vice presidential picks in modern campaigns have backfired, including Democrat Thomas Eagleton, who was removed by George McGovern from the ticket in 1972 after his history of electroshock treatments for depression was disclosed, and Republican Dan Quayle, who was introduced at the 1988 convention as a little-known senator who was quickly defined by questions about whether he had ducked active military service by joining the National Guard.
In Quayle's case, George H.W. Bush's campaign spent much effort on the timing, aiming to have a surprise announcement occur during the convention - only to have many reporters focus on questions about Quayle instead of the Bush campaign theme.
Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com. 