Veepstakes: Texting the announcement
Posted: Monday, August 11, 2008 9:16 AM by Mark Murray
A little after 6:00 pm ET last night, NBC’s Lauren Appelbaum reports that this message went out from Obama’s text-messaging service: "Barack will announce his VP candidate choice through txt msg between now & the Conv. Tell everyone to text VP to 62262 to be the first to know! Please forward."
Per NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs says this does NOT mean Obama has made his pick -- only that when he does he will announce via text.
USA Today has some pretty good vetting-problem bullet points on a few candidates, including Kaine, Bayh, Pawlenty and Cantor.
McCain "loves Lieberman. And he is on the [short]list because Lieberman has never embarrassed anyone, never misspoken. The first rule is, don't take someone who costs you votes," an adviser told The Financial Times. "Conservatives would be p---ed as hell - I think you would have a revolt, but sometimes John does what John wants to do."
More compiled by NBC/NJ's Matthew Berger and Carrie Dann...
REPUBLICANS: Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and McCain will campaign together today and tomorrow, after dining together Sunday night. McCain even landed at “Ridge Field” in Erie, Pa., the former governor’s hometown.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission touts Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Eric Cantor, while saying Ridge would be a “catastrophe.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will travel to Detroit this week to persuade General Motors to keep a plant in Shreveport alive.
DEMOCRATS: Obama and Bayh are co-authoring a bill on fatherhood -- the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act. "It would provide job training, remove marriage penalties from the tax code, and support domestic violence prevention efforts."
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, fresh from vacation, offered a few veep-spec soundbites to reporters at the annual meeting of the Southern Governor's association this weekend. "I've always thought it was kind of a long shot, or not all that likely."
