What, during the Democratic Convention?
Yeah, let's look at what's ahead for and what's in store from the Republicans. First let's look at the St. Paul convention next week. The GOP convention is already under attack, and not just from Democrats. Tropical Storm/Hurricane Gustav is heading into the Gulf of Mexico and forecasts have it making landfall sometime early next week -- during the Republican's convention -- in the New Orleans area. Now, I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure remembering Hurricane Katrina was not at the top of the list of things to be highlighted by the Republicans next week. So already, even before the convention kicks off, there have been, now, two things that have "gone wrong" for the Republican Party. First, this developing story in the Gulf isn't helping the party of Lincoln stay on message, and second was the news that the GOP is basically doing nothing to combat frontloading ahead of the 2012 election. Now, one of those is obviously a bit higher up on the priority list at the moment. People won't truly be paying attention to the frontloading thing for another three and a half years, but given the mission of this site, FHQ finds it necessary to include it here.
Already the weather has claimed the speaking spot allotted to Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal, who has pre-emptively declared a state of emergency in his state. That's a blow to the party because the Republicans now miss out on an opportunity to show off an up-and-coming presence within their party, someone who was mentioned as a possible running mate for McCain.
Obviously, this is an unpredictable situation, but it is worth tracking as we approach the Republicans' turn in the spotlight.
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The second topic I want to cover is the GOP VP announcement that is likely to come either today or tomorrow. Well, I suppose McCain has the option of doing it on Saturday as well, but as someone at a football school, I question the wisdom behind timing that announcement on the first full day of the college football season, not to mention a holiday weekend. Those issues aside, who is going to be the addition to the Republican ticket? Much of the recent buzz -- FHQ included -- has centered on Mitt Romney, but in the wake of the Biden selection and the Democratic convention, has that sentiment changed? David Brooks on PBS's coverage of the events last night in Denver said that Biden's performance and the course of the Democrats' convention had put the onus on McCain to shake things up with a Lieberman, or someone similar, selection. So we have three basic questions here:
1) When will the decision be announced? Today? Tomorrow? Some other time?
2) Who will it be?
3) Have the Biden selection and the Democratic convention given McCain reason to reconsider an already made choice or to alter the thought process on the matter altogether?
The comments section awaits for not only answers to those questions, but your thoughts on last night's proceedings in Denver.
H/t to Daniel for alerting me to the weather implications for the Republican convention yesterday.
NOTE: Also, I'm going to try and add in the 2000 data on the third party post from the other day. If I get to that, I'll have something up later in the day.
Recent Posts:
And the Ohio Plan is Dead. The Democrats Will Go It Alone on 2012 Presidential Primary Reform
The Democratic Convention Roll Call
The Electoral College Map (8/27/08)
Apparently the announcement will be made tomorrow to try to take away from Obama's speech tonight. Maybe he'll text it on his personal Blackberry at 3AM. As I said in an earlier comment, if it is someone expected, it will not grab headlines and will pale in comparison with the successful convention in Denver. If he does make a bold choice it will grab headlines, but all of the things going on this weekend will detract from any buzz he gets.
ReplyDeleteAlso, now that the Democrats have concluded with a strong unity message, it will be interesting if McCain can find a VP candidate that will not highlight disunity in the Republican party. I thought it was interesting that Bill directly contradicted all the comments made by Guiliani et al. about how Hillary's speech.
I had not considered the weather implications until I read this post. According to the Weather Underground (no, not THAT Weather Underground!) the 5-day projection, Gustav is to hit the LA coast at 2AM Tuesday morning. Could Jindal accept the VP nomination via video link?
http://www.wunderground.com
/tropical/tracking/at200807
_5day.html#a_topad
Is that Rob or William Ayers? Here's that weather link.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was, Jindal's out of one speaking spot, but will they potentially have another one (VP) for him? Purely speculative, but I'd lean toward the negative on that one.
I thought Bill Clinton's speech was effective. The "they used the same inexperienced thing with me" and the "look what the GOP did when they had full control in Washington" arguments were both solid points.
Here's another question: Richardson's speaking spot was moved from last night to tonight. Does that mean he will give the nominating speech introducing Obama? Thoughts?
1) Tomorrow
ReplyDelete2) Romney
3) No
Like Biden, I'm trying to learn to be a man of fewer words. :)
Indeed. Short, sweet and to the point. Well done, Scott.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all three answers.
I think either Romney or Pawlenty will be a mistake for McCain. If he choses someone else, I think it will be at least in partial reaction to Biden.
ReplyDeleteI think The Caucus may be stretching things here (That's what the Veepstakes is all about.), but they have reported that a Saturday -- after sundown -- rally and appearance with the GOP VP nominee is a possible sign that Lieberman is the choice. Saturday being the sabbath for Orthodox Jews and all.
ReplyDeleteWe'll know at 11am in the morning.
Well McCain has a special ad just after Obama's speech tonight. But we'll probably know about the VP selection sometime tomorrow. I'm guessing Romney. But it would be interesting if he chose Lieberman. The selection of Biden more then likely affected McCain's choice of VP.
ReplyDeleteWow, the extreme weather will really hurt the GOP convention. The memory of Katrina will not do the party an favors.
I would ditto SarahLawrenceScott, except while I think McCain has chosen Romney, I think the Biden selection has given him an opportunity to pick up some H. Clinton supporters, and the Dem convention has shown he needs to pick the running mate that will maximize his chance of winning the election. I therefore think he would have good reason to reconsider and pick Kay Bailey Hutchison. As a Obama supporter, I would certainly prefer he pick Romney, in fact, that's my favorite pick :-)
ReplyDeleteThoughts on last night: the amazing thing to me was the amount of emotion in the convention hall. I think the Democrats have shown they are the party that really cares about people, Americans and America. This is in pretty stark contrast to the coldness of the last eight years.
I think the Lieberman trial balloon is out there to scare the social conservatives witless so they will be happy that it turns out to be Romney. Sort of like we're so happy that gas is only $3.50 now even though it was under $3.00 this time last year. I have thought for sometime that KBH would be a good choice for McCain as Allen suggested, but I rejected it because no party would run two sitting Senators on the same ticket!
ReplyDeleteHutchison seems less of a good choice to me now. Since Hillary did as good a job rallying her supporters behind Obama as she possibly could have, it would be harder to pick off her supporters by picking a woman.
ReplyDeleteWe've already dissected Romney's strengths and weaknesses quite a bit. He'd be slightly helpful.
I think it's him, even with the Pawlenty rumors flying around. I know little about Pawlenty but he would be pretty useless. Probably wouldn't give McCain more than a point or two in Minnesota, and even with the convention there, there is no way McCain is winning Minnesota unless he's winning the election big. It's one of those three Democratic-leaning swing states that I don't really consider to be true swing states (the others are Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) as they won't swing an election. In Democratic victories, they will go Democratic, and in Republican victories they won't be the states pushing them over the top.
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ReplyDelete