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For what it is worth, Fox News’ Chris Stirewalt makes a very convincing case for the proposition that Mitt Romney will wait until the last possible moment to announce his running-mate:
Mitt Romney has 18 days in which to announce his choice of his running mate, and you can bet he’s going to milk as much from the topic as is humanly possible. So what’s the advantage in stopping the fun early?
Romney is prepared to tantalize the press pool with another round of house calls on top-tier contenders starting Saturday as he takes bus tours through Virginia (Gov. Bob McDonnell), Florida (Sen. Marco Rubio) and Ohio (Sen. Rob Portman).
The idea here is to ramp up the speculation to the most furious levels possible - to get reporters and Republicans totally immersed in the quadrennial parlor game of running-mate speculation.
For months, Team Romney has hinted that the running mate announcement would come early so as to create more buzz and give the duo more time to campaign ahead of the convention. But does that really make sense?
Nope. As is often the case, the value of Veep speculation exceeds the value of an actual Veep, particularly if you are Mitt Romney and you are likely to settle on someone very unexciting, and particularly if your media coverage has been a mite negative lately:
If Romney were to announce that he were picking McDonnell at a rally in Manassas, Va. on Saturday, that would leave more than two weeks before Republicans convene in Tampa. That’s plenty of time in the modern media blender for the excitement to be all gone and the discussion be back on Romney’s 1040 forms or a media dissection of Romney’s handling of the media.
Plus, it would give the press corps and the Obama campaign more than two weeks to splurp out all of the juicy tidbits for any running mate’s past. By the time he took the stage on Aug. 29, the story could be about McDonnell’s graduate dissertation on gender roles in the family, rather than the speech itself.
Translating Stirewalt’s analysis from the original Foxspeak, Mitt’s on the defensive, has nothing much positive to offer, and is unlikely to choose a running-mate who creates a buzz or defies criticism and scrutiny. So why not milk the distractions involved in the Veep guessing-game as long as possible, and then bury the inevitable letdown and any negative press about The Choice in the deep sands of Convention Coverage?
Makes sense to me.
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T2 on August 07, 2012 5:36 PM:
Why would anyone want to be Mitt's running mate? Nobody seems to like him.
stormskies on August 07, 2012 5:42 PM:
Lucifer does and that should be his VP.
bobbo on August 07, 2012 6:05 PM:
Hilarious. They keep telling us Mitt needs to move off the distractions and focus like a laser beam on the terrible economy. So now they've decided the terrible economy is not a winner for him? How much of a loser is this guy?
Peter C on August 07, 2012 6:12 PM:
Anti-climax much?
Smells like despiration.
mad_nVT on August 07, 2012 6:40 PM:
But. . . . . if reported accurately by the media, Veep-selection would show a succession of Romney prevarications and flip-floppery.
The guy can't make up his mind !
In his thrashing around, he's got his magic-Mormon shorts all twisted into a knot !
c u n d gulag on August 07, 2012 6:44 PM:
Well, when your candidate is an uber-rich guy who may or may not have paid all of the taxes that he could or should have, and closed down factories, and moved jobs oversea's, and has overseas bank accounts, and an IRA worth more than the GNP's of many of the worlds nations, and can't claim his time as the head of the Winter Olympics as a positive because they were known for two things - corruption and a US government bailout - and he can't run on his record as the Governor of MA because he had the Socialist audicity and temerity to create a state-wide health care system, and that your parties ravenous, moronic, racist, misogyinst, xenophobic, and/or homophobic base still doesn't trust him, and the only hope he and your party have is to generate interest in the campaign is, instead of waiting for your candidate to make another epic gaffe, to have the MSM wait and see and speculate on what pale, white, dull, male, imbecile is willing to dive off a political cliff with your candidate.
Yup - sounds like a winner to me!
And, what's sad about this country, is that it very might well be.
Anonymous on August 07, 2012 7:56 PM:
Mitt Romney has 18 days in which to announce his choice of his running mate...
Yet this is Romney we're talking about, so he'll probably end up telling the media he'd be happy to release his VP announcement once he's elected.
N.Wells on August 07, 2012 8:48 PM:
I guess I'd be interested if the choice turns out to be Moroni.
(That'd totally trash my lack of religion. Otherwise, it's got all the excitement of watching concrete set.)
Boringville on August 07, 2012 9:40 PM:
Loserville. VP. Choices. Romney. Republicans.