Wolking’s World

I mentioned to Media Lizzy when I appeared on her Blog Talk Radio show earlier that Evan Bayh could be named as Obama’s VP this week. A couple hours later, I stumble on this via Patterico. It’s OK though, I know this HuffPo guy doesn’t read me.

The top 5 reasons why he thinks Obama will annoint Bayh this Wednesday (no word yet on whether a dove will actually fly from Obama’s hand and come to rest on him):

The Olympics start on Friday and run until the Democratic convention starts. He won’t want to compete with the Olympics for press coverage. He’ll announce before the Olympics starts. If he announces on Wednesday morning, he’ll get coverage all day and be on the news cycle until the Opening Ceremonies knock him off the top spot.

Barack Obama is coming to the state on Tuesday afternoon for a campaign stop in Elkhart, Indiana. He’ll be attending with Evan Bayh. The press has been told to plan on staying until Wednesday afternoon/evening. Why would he spend so much time in Indiana with nothing on his public calendar?

Staying around Indiana allows Obama and Bayh to travel to Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio – all important states in this election. When you’ve just announced your VP, those are states you’ll want to visit – especially since Bayh’s reputation will help the most in those states.

The website ObamaBayh08.com is taken. For a tiny sliver of time late last week, you could type in the URL and you’d be forwarded to another site. Where do you think it took you? The Democratic Party website.

I just got an invite from the Obama campaign to attend an appearance on Wednesday that isn’t on Obama’s official calendar. Why not? The campaign said, “I can’t tell you what the event is about, but we want to make sure you have a ticket so you can cover it for the Bilerico Project. We want Bilerico Project to be there for this one.”

I think it would be a good choice. He can’t choose a black because he would then be the “black ticket” that Bill Clinton alluded to when talking about Jesse Jackson running for President way back when. So he needs to choose a white, but he can’t choose a woman who isn’t Hillary Clinton without causing a firestorm (and we know he doesn’t want her!). So, essentially, he is forced to choose a white male. Bayh is a good fit. He’s older–52–but looks younger. He has executive experience–he served as Indiana’s governor for eight years. Plus he’s been a US Senator since 1996 when he left that office. As Patterico mentions:

[I]t may be that they are looking for the VP pick who plays best with the midwestern voters in Michigan, Ohio, and Penn.  And Bayh was a strong Hillary supporter, so it may be a play for their support as well.