Veepstakes chicken: Who'll jump first?

Guest post by debrazza

The unveiling of both campaign's VP picks is now moving towards a stare-down in what amounts to a classic game of chicken.

With the opening ceremony in Beijing coming this Friday, time appears to be running out for either campaign to make their VP picks before the start of Democratic convention immediately following the Olympics on August 22nd.  At this stage of the campaign, there are only two more events that a campaign can fully control and stage manage to maximize their media value: (1) their acceptance speech at the convention and (2) the unveiling of their VP picks.

Timing is now becoming critical and Jed has tried a couple times to deduce when McCain will make his pick.  The McCain camp has long held that they will use their strategic advantage of having a later convention to announce their VP immediately after Obama.  However, as the polling was moving away from them, it did not seem like they could wait that long and they could have been forced to pick first just so that they could take control the news cycle.  Instead however, the McCain campaign chose to buy some leverage through a week long series of dirty and false attacks against Obama that culminated in Joe Klein calling McCain "scum".   The low-life tactics however reaped their desired result, a tightened race that has driven Nate Silver and the folks over at AmericaBlog to express concern.

But that polling has also bought McCain, in the forgotten parlance of "the Surge", breathing room.  So now, we had a new crop of stories on Monday telling us again that McCain will not pick until after Obama.  Mission accomplished.  The calculus of the McCain campaign is simple and two-fold.  First, they want to use their selection to dampen any enthusiasm or "bounce" that would come from an Obama selection.  Second, they may want to use their selection as a strategic opportunity to choose a ethnic, religious or gender minority candidate to contrast Obama's selection.  If Obama picks a man, they pick a woman.  If Obama pick a woman, they pick someone who's Jewish (like Monday's smokescreen of the intentional leaking of Eric Cantor, a Jewish Republican from Virginia).

Since the primaries, talk has abounded of McCain picking a woman to make a play for the PUMA vote should Obama not pick from either Hillary Clinton, Claire McCaskill or Kathleen Sebelius and Hillary in particular.  I believe this scenario however is highly unlikely for a number of reasons.

1. Intangibles: McCain has a weird thing about women and displays an obvious discomfort that could hurt his "authenticity" when campaigning.
2. Strategy: the McCain campaign has chosen to run what is shaping up as a massive culture war campaign, with his convention going Nashville.  This is a huge departure from the last few Republican campaigns that went to pains to showcase African-American entertainers to burnish diversity bona-fides.  Based on the entertainment alone, I think it is pretty clear what kind of campaign that they intend to run.  While a woman would certainly soften their image as the attacks get dirty, the visuals may confuse the message.
3. Personnel: there are a dearth of Republican women with the pedigree to pass Hillary's "Commander-in-Chief test", clearly the standard McCain wants to play for.  Olympia Snowe and Christie Whitman are obvious non-starters because they are pro-choice.  AK Gov. Sarah Palin is in the midst of a bit an abuse of power scandal.  So who's left?  By my count only three, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Carly Fiorina and Heather Wilson.  Each of those choices for McCain however comes with some serious pitfalls.

Hutchinson has said that she doesn't want the job and has denigrated the position, they may not get along because she didn't endorse until after he won the nomination and most importantly, has been wishy washy on "The Surge". 

Fiorina had a tumultuous tenure at HP where I am sure there are plenty of corporate insiders just waiting to provide reams of damaging anecdotes to reporters.  In addition, her lack of any prior public service should put her under a fierce microscope of scrutiny because she would be one 72 year old heartbeat from the presidency.  The majority of that scrutiny will of course focus on money, starting with the propriety of her massive golden parachute and including her assets and investments as well as a good decade of tax returns.  She doesn't have the McCain excuse that the money is in someone else's name.  And this focus on money will be unwanted for the McCain campaign because it will also refresh questions about their wealth.  And then of course there is the Viagra fiasco. 

Lastly, and the most likely is Wilson.  She has a national security credential due to her military record in the Air Force and attended an academy, like McCain.  It fits his "country first" motto and it would give them the obvious avenue to mock Obama by saying that she is more qualified to be Commander-in-Chief than he is.  But, she was significantly involved in the firing of U.S. Attorney David Yglesias and it would be a bad move for McCain to pick someone who has a personal role in one of Bush's scandals.  Also, the DOJ OIG has not yet issued their report on the scandal yet and if he does pick her and then they drop a bomb on them, his candidacy is over immediately.  Another problem is that Yglesias is one of the more prominent people in the media on this front.  And lastly, she lost her recent Senate primary.  The voters of New Mexico rejected her for a larger stage, why should she get a VP nod?

On to Obama, there is a great deal of speculation surrounding Obama's trip today to Elkhart, IN.  That speculation all centers around Obama choosing Bayh has his running mate.  24 hours in one spot is a long time for a campaign and there have been other "tells" as well.  Bil Browning assembles an impressive case for the unveiling of Bayh.  Karen Tumulty raisies a good point as well.  It should also be noted that Hillary is scheduled to hit the campaign trail starting on Friday.  A move possibly to assuage any of her supporters disappointment at the VP selection not being her.

However, we know Obama has a reputation as an accomplished low stakes poker player, so we have to question whether this is a bluff.  First of all, McCain as the one who is running behind, needs the two separate major events more than Obama does to boost his poll numbers.  Second, as Bil Browning points out, there are two events scheduled; one on Tuesday and another Wednesday morning.  Now, this could be a move to try and get the VP pick a full two days of coverage, but the Wednesday morning time seems like a giveaway, because it gives the McCain campaign that afternoon for their pick and then basically cedes them Thursday before the most expensive opening ceremony in the history of the world obliterates everything for a few days.  If the Obama campaign can successfully chew up 2 days, it puts the McCain campaign in a bit of a bind, leaving only two days before the Olympics, or to wait until their own convention.  McCain has already used up their VP bluff while Obama was in Europe.  Also, it is important to remember that Obama has reserved a lot of ad time during the Olympics, which gives him a massive ability to go it alone until the convention if necessary.

Who will jump first?  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

By the way, it's nice to be back and hopefully I can entertain everyone until Thursday.