Given that there’s very little actual news when it comes to the presidential candidates’ running mates, it seems almost silly to examine (and overly interpret) what little news there is to glean. And yet, the political world wants to talk about little else, so we might as well go over what we’ve got.
Late yesterday, for example, Joe Biden surprised almost everyone when he suggested he wouldn’t be Barack Obama’s pick.
As Delaware Sen. Joe Biden was leaving his house in Wilmington this afternoon, he slowed down and said to the gathered news reporters outside his home: “You guys have got better things to do, I’m not the guy.”
A source close to Biden, however, told the Huffington Post, “That is a comment that he typically gives for people who ask about [the vice presidency]
,” adding that Biden has been repeating the same stock answer for weeks.
Soon after, Biden himself clarified his denial, telling reporters he hasn’t talked to anyone and doesn’t know what’s going to happen. “I promise I don’t know anything,” Biden said.
Is it possible that Obama has decided to pick Biden, but Biden doesn’t know it? Sure. The NYT noted that as of late Monday, Obama “had not notified his choice — or any of those not selected — of his decision.”
Also yesterday, Obama spoke at a town-hall meeting in North Carolina, and was asked if would utilize his vice president as Bush utilized Cheney. “Let me tell you first what I won’t do,” Obama said. “I won’t hand over my energy policy to my vice president, without knowing necessarily what he’s doing…. My vice president also will be a member of the executive branch, he won’t be one of these fourth branches of government where he thinks he’s above the law.”
Obama’s pronoun use , of course, sparked a new round of speculation about whether this would rule the possibility of a woman running mate.
On the other side of the aisle, most of the talk, oddly enough, has been about Joe Lieberman.
Lieberman has already said, many times, that he’s not interested in running on the Republican presidential ticket, but there are nevertheless multiple reports about the possibility.
John McCain is seriously considering choosing a pro-abortion-rights running mate despite vocal resistance from conservatives, with former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) very much in the mix, close McCain advisers say. […]
One source close to the campaign who is sympathetic to such a plan sketched out a scenario in which Lieberman was the choice.
“First, if your instinct is to run on experience, it doesn’t hurt to have a vice president who’s got it, too,” said this source, a conservative.
But more than that, according to this source, picking Lieberman would dramatically support McCain’s theme that he puts “country first” above all else.
“It would fit well into the narrative of his not having any politics in the White House,” said the source. “No more Dick Morris, no more Karl Rove — we’re governing here. It’s an easy, natural message for McCain and it implies a one-term pledge without actually saying it.”
What’s more, Jonathan Martin reported that there appears to be a vetting process underway.
Top aides to Joseph Lieberman have reached out to former staffers in recent days with “substantive questions” about the issue areas they worked on while working for the Connecticut senator, according to a source close to Lieberman.
Clarine Nardi Riddle, Lieberman’s Chief of Staff, and Sherry Brown, a top district aide and his 2006 campaign manager, are working the phones and sending emails in an apparent attempt to compile a portfolio for the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee.
Without saying definitively that the information-gathering was being done to share with McCain’s campaign, this source said “it would be unusual if not in the context of being vetted.”
If McCain were to pick Lieberman, there may be a legal problem — in order to be certified on some state ballots, the Republican Party requires Republican candidates to be Republicans.
Nevertheless, this seems to have moved beyond the “insider scuttlebutt” phase. A state GOP official told the Washington Times that he talked with two “high-level” McCain campaign officials who said that “Lieberman is a very real possibility.” The same Times article notes that Lindsey Graham is among those pushing for a McCain-Lieberman ticket.
The GOP base is
, not surprisingly, very unhappy about the possibility.
Stay tuned.