Obama/Bayh

The text message thing is an interesting gimmick (but, in the end, just a gimmick and one that the campaign will no doubt try to use to solicit donations in the future), but even that makes the timing weird.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not going to be checking my phone for a text message all night tonight and all morning tomorrow.

I’ll get my news the way I usually get it on a Saturday.

On Sunday morning.

I like the idea that they’re waiting because it’s going to be a very straight-forward choice (i.e. Biden) and they know that’s the kind of pick that pays long-term dividends but would provide little short-term burst.

If nothing else, all this has given us political junkies something to expound about all week.

What Obama DOESN’T want is a huge gap between the announcement and his first appearance with his running mate. He wants to control the storyline in his favor, not leave enough time for the media to start digging, prying, complaining, inventing stories to fill time and stalking the VP candidate (they’ve already been staked out at the Biden residence and chasing Evan Bayh’s SUV).

I think a last-minute pre-rally roll-out is prudent.

How many average Americans do you think are really going to be sitting by their televisions tomorrow morning waiting in breathless anticipation for The Announcement ?

And how many are going to spend all that much time watch the Democratic, or Republican, Conventions ?

And, of those, how many will be people who haven’t already made up their minds ?

The average American barely pays attention to Presidential races before Labor Day. I doubt this year will be any exception, and I doubt all this stagecraft, if that’s what it is, is going to have that much of an impact on the race.

I think the plan is to minimize the opportunity for folks to spin and digest the choice prior to the convention. Look at how it’s scheduled to unfold. The announcement (Tah-DAAH!!) is immediately followed by the kickoff to the co-campaigning and then flows right into the convention.

That means that McCain and co are pretty much kicked to page 4 starting fri nite or sat morning, which extends “all democrats all the time” convention coverage by 2 days.

This makes a ton of sense to me. The democrats are doing everything they can to maximize Obama’s post-convention bump, so they scripted the 2-day run up, including the VP announcement, and hope to culminate it with a nomination acceptance speech for the ages. It’s called stagecraft, folks. Stagecraft.

It also allows the houses attack to gain the most traction, rather than getting shoved off page when the veep is announced