The Obama campaign tries to link McCain to Jack Abramoff via Ralph Reed:

The McCain campaign hits back, invoking Bill Ayers:

“Barack Obama’s ad is ridiculous. Because of John McCain, corruption was exposed and people like Jack Abramoff went to jail.

“However, if Barack Obama wants to have a discussion about truly questionable associations, let’s start with his relationship with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, at whose home Obama’s political career was reportedly launched. Mr. Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group responsible for countless bombings against targets including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and numerous police stations, courthouses and banks. In recent years, Mr. Ayers has stated, ‘I don’t regret setting bombs … I feel we didn’t do enough.’

“The question now is, will Barack Obama immediately call on the University of Illinois to release all of the records they are currently withholding to shed further light on Senator Obama’s relationship with this unrepentant terrorist?” --McCain spokesman Brian Rogers

During a McCain campaign conference call with the media, former GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani attacked Obama foreign policy adviser Daniel Kurtzer, who met with Syria's foreign minister last month. Kurtzer told the New York Sun that "None of us thought we were being used or abused [by the Syrian regime]. But we will see over time."

Negotiations should only occur "when you have confidence that you're not being used," Giuliani said. "Maybe this is a playing-out of [Obama's] negotiating with dictators without precondition."

I'm surprised that residents of Quebec would let animal rights activists get the better of them on their 400th anniversary:

The Thetford Chicken Massacre is not as well-known as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but the controversial Quebec tradition in which participants place bets while decapitated chickens run around is coming to an end.

Organizers of the annual activity in the eastern Quebec town of Thetford Mines defended the pastime but caved in to pressure Tuesday and cancelled the event, which was deemed "barbaric" by animal rights groups.

The little-known event has been taking place for several years on Labour Day when about a hundred people gather to watch decapitated chickens and turkeys flop around on a grid painted on the ground.

Did supporters of the tradition refer to it as the "Thetford Chicken Massacre"? I imagine not, but who knows. Perhaps a good compromise would be allow the tradition to continue one last year, and instead of using chickens, Quebec residents could sacrifice the hybrid animal France gave to them in celebration of their 400th anniversary. Do recall Quebec residents were so unhappy with the animal that the Vachibou was forced into hiding. Why not honor both the Vachibou and Quebec with a hybrid hecatomb?

The Washington Times reported that the McCain campaign will be playing ads during the Democratic convention. My sources on the campaign now tell me that several new ads will premiere, and they will be specifically tailored to the Denver convention. I wonder whether one of the new ads will focus on Obama's answer at this past Saturday's townhall that matters of life and death were "above his pay grade." Perhaps there wasn't time to cut and deliver an ad featuring this line, but I feel statement might provide the opening Team Clinton never got, perhaps doing as much damage as the "I voted for it before I voted against it" line.

Of course, I'm not suggesting John McCain should seek to make abortion the focal point of his campaign. But I do think Obama's answer could be used to raise broader questions about whether he is ready to lead. After all, Obama basically admitted he's not up to the job, and it feeds the theme of being a lightweight the way Kerry's blunder helped bolster the theme that he's a flip-flopper. Even if there's no time to cut a television ad, perhaps team McCain could at least put together one of their snappy web ads about it.

Eli Lake reports that Daniel Kurtzer, an unpaid foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, took a little junket to Damascus last month:

The next president, whether Republican or Democrat, will make a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement a priority only if the two sides, meeting now in Turkey, make substantial progress before the inauguration.

That is what a foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama told Syria's foreign minister last month while on a visit to Damascus. While the trip was not connected to the Obama campaign, Daniel Kurtzer nonetheless provided Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem with some advice of his own.

"I urged him to move ahead in the Israel-Syria negotiations as much as possible so that whoever is the next president would not start from too far down the track," Mr. Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel, said yesterday in a phone interview. "I did not say anything about Obama or McCain. I said whoever is the next president is not going to want to inherit a process that isn't going anywhere."

Mr. Kurtzer was in the Syrian capital for a conference co-sponsored by the Law Society of England and Wales and the American Bar Association and arranged by the British Syrian Society. That last group is chaired by Dr. Fawaz Akhras, a London-based cardiologist and the father of the Syrian president's wife, Asma al-Assad. The parley was underwritten by a number of Syrian corporations and also by Petro-Canada, a Canadian oil concern.

Wow. An Obama adviser in the pocket of Syrian corporations and big oil? But don't worry, the Obama campaign has drawn a line in the sand: It's okay for advisers to talk with Bashar al-Asad's regime but not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's:

The deputy communications director for the McCain campaign, Michael Goldfarb, quipped yesterday: "If one of Senator Obama's advisers has been to Damascus, we just wonder how many have been to Tehran."

[Obama spokeswoman Wendy] Morigi responded, "That's ridiculous. Of course no advisers have been to Tehran."

The Damascus/Tehran double-standard doesn't make any sense. In Obama's AIPAC speech in June, he said that "Syria continues its support for terror and meddling in Lebanon. And Syria has taken dangerous steps in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction". If Obama advisers shouldn't coddle an Iranian regime meddling in Iraq and pursuing nuclear weapons makes, then Syria should be off limits as well.

The 3,000-word puff-piece on Obama's online operation in this morning's Washington Post is beyond tedious. A sample:

Texting is a two-way street, and staffers and volunteers respond to texts from supporters who send questions such as "Where's my polling place?" He wouldn't divulge how many supporters receive texts, but the strategy was effective enough to be used in subsequent contests. "Help Barack get out the vote in Pennsylvania! If you can get to PA between now and 4/22, REPLY to this msg: TVL and your NAME (ex. TVL Ann). Please fwd msg," read a text sent before the Keystone State primary.

Note the casual reference to the candidate ("Barack"); the request to forward ("fwd") the text; and the timing -- the text was sent two weeks before polls opened, giving it plenty of time to be passed around. Says Goodstein, "We've just begun to crack how valuable texting is."

Ahem. Note also what the reporter fails to note: Obama lost that Keystone State primary by 9 points.

Via Ed Morrissey, the Obama campaign has said that all the tickets to Obama's speech at Invesco Field next Thursday are free, but that's not true:

Political conventions focus public attention on presidential politics like few other events. So it’s not surprising that these quadrennial confabs also can produce significant movement in public opinion. Political scientist Tom Holbrook provides a useful history of convention bounces in this blog post.

A few notable points. First, all conventions are not “bounce”-producing events. But conventions can help candidates lagging in the pre-convention polls (such as Goldwater in 1964 or Gore in 2000) catch up. These bigger surges tend to occur when a candidate is underperforming in pre-election polls.

His research also suggests Obama may emerge with a larger bump. That’s because the candidate with the earlier convention usually gets a bigger bounce:

The earliest convention tends to get a bigger bump, and there is some evidence that going appreciably earlier exacerbates this effect. One reason for this is that the first convention is held by the out-party, whose candidate [is] generally less familiar to the general public. Another possible reason is that opinions are generally less well-formed early in the campaign and may be more easily shaped by the first convention. In the data presented above, the first convention bump was the larger than the second in seven election cycles, smaller in three (1988, 200[0], 2004), and essentially tied in one (1980).

So, will a bigger Obama bounce prove fatal to McCain? Not necessarily. Holbrook has this caveat.

It should be clear that the magnitude of the convention bump is not a great predictor of election outcomes. For instance, Goldwater got a huge bump and went on to a miserable defeat, Nixon got a huge bump and narrowly won in 1968, and Reagan got a very small bump and still won the 1984 election by a wide margin. My sense is that the size of the bump doesn't matter so much as whether the candidate gets the bump he is expected to get.

Via Mike Allen, the Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that Barack Obama gained more news coverage than John McCain even when Obama was on vacation:

For the ninth time in 10 weeks, moreover, Obama generated more coverage than his rival, even during a week when he was vacationing. The Democrat registered as a significant or dominant factor in 63% of the campaign stories studied, compared with 50% for McCain.

In all fairness, I'm sure that John McCain bodysurfing would generate a lot more news than whatever Obama is doing on any given day. Cowabunga. Dude.

From Talking Points Memo, “Fibbin’” by Josh Marshall

Here’s the post in its entirety:

From a Republican pal ...

“You didn't get this from me, but use it as you will. Is it just me -- as a Republican knowing how we've played this game before -- or should there be genuine puzzlement why Obama isn't unleashing Democratic veterans (Jim Webb, Jack Reed, John Kerry, BOB Kerrey perhaps, etc. Some Democratic generals, whatever) to go after McCain on this ‘cross in the dirt’ stuff? I mean, if there was one issue tailor-made for ‘Swift-Boat’ payback, I can't think of anything else."

It ain't bean bag.

As Byron York points out, this story is unlikely to go away. Obama supporters actually think they have a winner in disputing a story John McCain has told about his years in the Hanoi Hilton and that his bunkmates have corroborated. It’s a brilliant plan – how could the American public not warm to a campaign that calls some of our most highly decorated Veterans liars while bringing increased attention to John McCain’s wartime heroics? Besides, it’s not like Obama didn’t show amazing courage himself as a younger man while intrepidly prowling the notoriously rough lecture halls at the University of Chicago Law School. Just for the record, as a fellow Republican (though not a pal of Josh Marshall), I heartily endorse the notion of Obama embracing this strategy.

What’s especially interesting here is how John McCain has responded to these attacks, or rather hasn’t responded. Yesterday, in replying to the much milder barbs that he has received, Barack Obama alternated between unsuccessfully talking tough and successfully whining. At one point, Obama told a friendly audience they shouldn’t worry because they had a candidate who didn’t “take any guff.” I swear, I thought it was John Wayne talking for just a moment. Yet at another appearance, Obama pleaded for John McCain to “acknowledge” that he wants to serve America’s national interest. (One might wonder why Obama so needs the approbation of his rival, but that’s a topic for another day.)

Regarding the cross in the sand allegations, McCain hasn’t felt the need to respond to this rubbish, and why should he? Obama responds to every slight, real or perceived, because he feels the need to show that he’s tough enough to be president and not just some Ivy League egghead with few tangible accomplishments. McCain’s experiences speak for themselves as far as the toughness department is concerned. I’m quite certain we’ll never hear John McCain say anything so magnificently lame as “I don’t take any guff.” As for the subject of potential presidents whining, perhaps McCain’s life lessons have taught him better than Obama’s that whatever your situation and whatever unfairness life has hurled at you, pouting seldom makes it better.

On a related note, virtually every new poll that comes out seems to bring more bad news for Obama. How could that be?

McCain leads Obama by 5 points in a new national Reuters/Zogby poll.

McCain leads Obama 46 to 41 percent among likely voters, which the poll found is outside the margin of error. Reuters/Zogby had Obama ahead by 7-points as recently as mid July.

And Rasmussen shows McCain up by 5 points in Ohio:

McCain attracts 45% of the vote in Ohio while Obama earns 41%. That’s little changed from a month ago when McCain led 46% to 40%.

When “leaners” are included in the totals, McCain leads Obama 48% to 43%.

From the Los Angeles Times, “Barack Obama's Image Suffers Amid John McCain Attacks, Poll Finds” by Michael Finnegan

More good polling news for the Maverick. The latest L.A. Times/Bloomberg effort shows McCain pulling within two of Obama, trailing by the razor thin margin of 45-43. In June, the Times/Bloomberg showed Obama with a 12 point lead. The Times is clear on what has caused Obama’s stunning fall from grace:

Barack Obama's public image has eroded this summer amid a daily onslaught of attacks from Republican rival John McCain, leaving the race for the White House statistically tied, according to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released today.

Far more voters say McCain has the right experience to be president, the poll found. More than a third have questions about Obama's patriotism.

I’m happy that the Times credits the McCain campaign for such scary effectiveness – after all, I have friends working there. But isn’t there another side to the equation? Yes, the McCain campaign in the Schmidt era has done a nice job, but doesn’t Team Barry and Obama Himself deserve some credit for pummeling his own numbers?

Initially, Obama-philes like Andrew Sullivan referred to Obama’s exciting foreign adventure as an “objectively miraculous fortnight.” Now, even Sullivan sees that the trip revealed the worst aspects of Obama. Although Andrew doesn’t typically bother to list Obama’s greatest shortcomings, I will – a preening narcissism, a fondness for platitudes, a tendency to whine and a potentially fatal lack of substance.

It’s the latter failing that may truly doom Obama. People who have followed the campaign closely for a while have long since discovered that Obama is the ultimate one-trick pony. Provided with a teleprompter, he delivers a speech very nicely. But even that talent has grown stale as he has run out of material. He hits the same “uplift” themes repeatedly, and shows a seeming allergy to getting specific.

Obama also has the problem that that the press still paints an unrealistic portrait of him. Check out the venerable font of conventional wisdom, David Gergen, writing this afternoon:

Heading into the candidates’ appearances on Saturday night at Saddleback Church, the conventional wisdom in politics was Barack Obama should have a clear upper hand in any joint appearance with John McCain — one the young, eloquent, cool, charismatic dude who can charm birds from the trees, the other the meandering, sometimes bumbling, old fellow who can barely distinguish Sunnis from Shiias.

Well, kiss that myth goodbye.

McCain came roaring out of the gate from the first question and was a commanding figure throughout the night as he spoke directly and often movingly about his past and the country’s future. By contrast, Obama was often searching for words and while far more thoughtful, was also less emotionally connective with his audience.

Let’s put aside the fact that Gergen was perhaps a little behind the curve with his assessment of Obama’s eloquence. Some of us happened to notice the profusion of “ahs” and “ums” that litter every extemporaneous Obama utterance before Saturday night’s debate. Let’s instead focus on Gergen’s assessment that Obama is the “far more thoughtful” of the two candidates.

I would love to hear Gergen dilate on how he reached that conclusion. Is it Obama’s robust independent streak that Gergen is tacitly nodding at? Wait a second – it can’t be. On virtually every subject ranging from Clarence Thomas to nuclear weapons, Obama is a font of the most hackneyed, liberal, conventional wisdom. Perhaps Gergen has inferred from all the “ums” that Obama loses himself in deep thought whenever he speaks. Or maybe he just manufactured Obama’s “far more thoughtful” nature out of whole cloth.

Regardless, the rest of the country is beginning to discover some things about Obama that serious Obama observers have known for a while. Obama doesn’t wear well. He didn’t wear well in the Democratic primaries, and it appears he’s wearing no better in the general election season.

Very interesting Politico article from Jonathan Martin, Mike Allen and Alexander Burns. In short, they say that Joe Lieberman is a serious contender to be John McCain's running mate. Their reporting is consistent with everything I've been hearing. My basic take: If McCain were making the decision alone, and without regard to party and politics, he would choose Lieberman. McCain believes the war -- broadly understood -- matters more than anything and Lieberman understands the war and how to win it better than virtually anyone. He is more comfortable with Lieberman than any of the other VP finalists. And Lieberman is definitely interested in the job.

But McCain is not making the decision in a vacuum. And many of his advisers believe Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is the best pick -- both because he would be acceptable to the Republican base and he is a fresh face who cuts into Barack Obama's "change" message.

When McCain talked to me last week about the possibility that he would choose a pro-choice running mate, he specifically mentioned Tom Ridge. Although Ridge had been under serious consideration in the days leading up to our conversation, I thought it much more likely that McCain was testing a prospective Lieberman pick than a Ridge pick. (I inadvertently left out of that first story one interesting detail: Lieberman was sitting directly in front of me and McCain when we talked about a pro-choice running mate.) The previous day ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg interviewed Lieberman. Their discussion was fascinating for several reasons, not least of which was Lieberman's comment that he had not spoken with McCain about serving as his runningmate.

A final point: A couple weeks back -- before McCain talked about picking a pro-choice running mate -- one senior McCain adviser told me that it would be a mistake to discount Rudy Giuliani. So I haven't, though I still find that possibility a long-shot.

As the Politico piece makes clear, Lieberman is still under very active consideration and it would not be a big surprise if Lieberman was the pick. Still, if I had to put money on it today, I'd bet on Pawlenty or another pro-life candidate who has not been in the speculative discussion of the past two weeks.

Lefty bloggers are slowly beginning to climb down from their accusation that John McCain fabricated or pilfered the story of a prison guard drawing a cross in the dirt while he was a POW. One hypothesis--that McCain ripped off the story from The Gulag Archipelago--has been debunked. Turns out the cross-in-the-sand story never appears in any of Solzhenitsyn's work.

Also, Ross Douthat has a good response to Andrew Sullivan's intense speculation on the subject. Douthat notes that the obsession with the cross-in-the-sand story treads awfully close to the sort of feverish speculation on Obama's connections to Islam that Jerome Corsi engages in (and, I might add, Corsi's unsubstantiated suggestion that Obama dealt drugs).

It is, of course, possible that Andrew's suspicions are justified and McCain invented (or at the very least seriously embellished) the story to pander to the dread Christianists; all sorts of things are possible when you're dealing with a story that almost by definition can't be corroborated. But if this is the standard we're establishing, it's also possible that Jerome Corsi is right when he insinuates that Barack Obama is deliberately concealing the extent of his childhood exposure to Islam in order to maintain his political viability. After all, who can really say?

A bipartisan coalition of House Members is pressing Speaker Pelosi to invite Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to address a joint session of Congress:

House and Senate leaders should invite Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to address a joint session of Congress, according to bipartisan members of the Congressional Georgia Caucus.

The gesture of support would express “solidarity and commitment” to a U.S. ally under attack by Russia, according to a “Dear Colleague” letter sent to House and Senate Democratic and GOP leaders by Reps. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) and Bill Shuster (R-Pa.).

“Importantly, Georgia has been a close ally of the United States and deployed its forces to assist our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as cooperated with the United States in a number of other counter-terrorism measures,” the members wrote...

Schwartz and Shuster serve as co-chairmen of the Congressional Georgia Caucus, which includes 14 members. The letter was addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

An invitation to address Congress is an honor awarded relatively rarely, but clearly an appropriate one for the leader of a fledgling democracy under fire.

Yesterday, while speaking to an audience in New Mexico, Barack Obama admitted that he thought it would be great if American adopted a plan for universal health care:

Barack Obama said he would consider embracing a single-payer health-care system, beloved by liberals, as his plan for broader coverage evolves over time.

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.

A single-payer system would eliminate private insurance companies and put a Medicare-like system into place where the government pays all health-care bills with tax dollars...

But Obama repeated that he rejects an immediate shift to a single-payer system. “Given that a lot of people work for insurance companies, a lot of people work for HMOs. You’ve got a whole system of institutions that have been set up,” he said at a roundtable discussion with women Monday morning after a voter asked, “Why not single payer?”

This statement shouldn't really come as a surprise. While Obama's health plan for the 2008 presidential campaign works with the existing private health care system, he introduced a constitutional amendment in the Illinois state legislature that would have forced the state to adopt a universal health care system by 2002. The text of the proposed amendment:

Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity, and there is an obligation for the State of Illinois to ensure that every person is able to realize this fundamental right. On or before May 31, 2002, the General Assembly by law shall enact a plan for universal health care coverage that permits everyone in Illinois to obtain decent health care on a regular basis.

Democrats in Denver figure why feed the homeless when you can give them stylish haircuts.

When Sylvester and Ghandia Johnson saw news reports about homeless people being given vouchers to the zoo and the movies during the DNC, they didn't feel it was right.

"We just kind of felt like in news reports lately it was like, 'What are we going to do with them,' trying to sweep them under the rug," said Ghandia Johnson.

The couple owns Sly's Salon at Grant Street and 16th Avenue, in downtown Denver. They decided to use their business to create a so-called cut-a-thon specifically for the homeless.

"We thought we could help some of Denver's homeless residents by giving them a fresh look, giving them real good self esteem and helping them feel part of the DNC, so they look their best," said Ghandia Johnson.

With a hip new look, the homeless won't get in the way of Democrats at least creating the appearance of hope and change. As I once heard a person say in explaining why she didn't donate her old clothes, "I mean, the homeless have enough to worry about without having to wear last season."

From 538.com, “538’s Battlegrounds as of Mid-August” by Sean

I’ve mentioned 538.com in the past, but here’s a timely reminder. It is without question the best site for poll analysis on the internet. If you like following the presidential horserace (and who doesn’t?), it should be a daily stop.

This article on the battleground states came out a few days ago. Mea culpa for taking so long to link to it:

The last month has seen a nearly across-the-board uptick for John McCain. That's his good news. The good news for Barack Obama is that no states have flipped in our projections since mid-July. Since that month showed more of the McCain states inside of five points closer to the dead-even line, it's now Obama whose states are slightly closer to that line. Two Obama-projected states sit on the precipice of flipping: Ohio and Colorado.

The mid-August projection -- using a winner-take-all model rather than the probabilistic version that we usually use here -- remains at Obama 293, McCain 245.

You’ll want to read the whole thing.

Personally, I partially credit the McCain campaign’s newfound pugnacity as embodied by the unfairly maligned Celebrity ad for its August “McGain.” The remainder of the credit rests with the moribund Obama campaign. A vague message of Hopenchange was bound to get stale, especially when it got mixed up with unprecedented amounts of overexposure.

The question then becomes whether Obama can do anything else besides the Hopenchange shtick. The Washington Post reported that he assured an assemblage of Obamaphiles yesterday that he was about to unveil the new, pugnacious Obama. He signaled the oncoming transformation with the bravely butch pronouncement, “You have a candidate who doesn't take any guff.” So here was the non-guff taking Obama addressing the VFW convention today:

“I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest. Now, it's time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same.”

Is it just me, or does the new, pugnacious Obama sound a lot like the old, whiny one?

From a new Pew survey on the public's knowledge:

About half of Americans (53%) can correctly identify the Democrats as the party that has a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. In February 2007, shortly after the Democrats gained control of the House after a dozen years of GOP rule, many more people (76%) knew the Democrats held the majority.

In 2004, voter turnout was 64 percent. That means there will be at the very least 20 million Americans heading to polls in November who don't know that the Democrats control the House. Sigh.

Via Allahpundit, the Chinese pitchers beaned one U.S. player and hit four others during last night's baseball game in retaliation for a couple of home plate collisions with the Chinese catchers.

Bowling over a catcher at home may be rough, but it's part of the game. Throwing a fastball at a batter's head, on the other hand, is nearly criminal.

Exit question: James Fallows was embarrassed by his gauche countrymen yelling "the ever-classy 'U - S - A! U - S - A!'" cheer at the game last night. Maybe he's just disappointed they didn't burst into even classier chants of 'O - BA - MA!'?

After all, Obama is "a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions"--if he does say so himself.

It's "Veep Week," says The Trail's Dan Balz, and practically every blogger has a contribution to what he calls the "orgy of speculation." Both candidates are expected to announce their VP before the end of next week.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Barack Obama "has all but settled" on his pick, even though ABC's Jake Tapper reports that the pick hasn't been informed yet. Obama's top contenders seem to be Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, former Virginia governor Tim Kaine, and the most buzzed about today, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. Many lefty bloggers are pro-Biden, but Kos says that "even if we stipulate that he has foreign policy chops, how does that make him a good veep choice? It strikes me that any pick designed to cover up a 'flaw' in Obama (i.e. 'lack of foreign policy credentials') only accentuates those flaws." Wonkette's Sara Smith adds that Biden is the only acceptable choice: "Let’s review the list of people who will not be Barack Obama’s running mate: Hillary Clinton, because she would poison him; Jack Reed, because he isn’t interested; Tim Kaine, because of the eyebrows."

On the right, The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini calls both Biden and Kaine "lame" choices, and Jack M. at Ace of Spades asks, "Now, aside from Joe Biden himself, is there anyone that thinks that Biden brings much of anything to this ticket? Aside from hair-plugs and an over-inflated sense of self-worth, that is." But Hot Air's Allahpundit thinks we might be in for a surprise and notes that "leaking the names of Bayh, Biden, and Kaine seems odd when Obama’s playing everything else so close to the vest. Almost seems like a deliberate decoy, designed to draw us away from the actual nominee so that when the announcement drops it’ll go off like a nuclear blast."

Meanwhile, the Politico reported last night that John McCain will announce his VP on August 29, the day after Obama's acceptance speech (and McCain's 72nd birthday). Townhall's Amanda Carpenter says, "The timing cannot be coincidental. McCain rolling out his VP on the 29th is sure to distract the media from obsessing over his age and take some of the afterglow away from Obama's historic nomination speech."

Who will it be? While Marc Ambinder provides hints for determining a veep, at Contentions, Jennifer Rubin says we can be sure that it will be "someone McCain trusts deeply and who would be a credible commander-in-chief." The bloggers at The Corner note some of the many possibilities: Mitt Romney? Rob Portman? Rudy Giuliani? A pro-choice politician? We'll find out next week--and not by text message!