Romney to announce running mate on Saturday @9am ET in Norfolk, VA

[Mr. Morden]

CMR was named House liaison a while back.

Yep.  I posted on that a couple of weeks ago:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=154106.msg3322775#msg3322775

[Mr. Morden]

No link, but my sources out in Utah said Condi Rice was the star of Romney's speech, receiving a standing ovation. I expect her name to start being floated around more.

I hope. She would be a fantastic pick. Her pro-choice stance isn't exactly one I agree with, but she's content to accept pro-life politics. And... people in the rust belt will take kindly to a moderate, well-spoken woman. I think Condi is the only real trump card left in this game.

Rice said this just this morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNS_-6DVMWQ&feature=player_embedded

[Mr. Morden]

McDonnell reverses course on the vetting question.  In the early days after the vetting began, McDonnell says that he hadn't been contacted by the Romney campaign.  Now he refuses to comment:

http://www.wtop.com/120/2919120/Virginia-governor-shifts-tone-might-be-vetted-for-VP

So the list of people who currently refuse to comment on whether they're being vetted:

Jindal
McDonnell
Pawlenty
Portman
Rubio
Ryan
Thune
Tom Graves (?)

Also, as far as I can tell, no one's asked Christie if he's being vetted.....which seems rather strange.

[Mr. Morden]

Google's new Veepstakes page tracks web trends for some of the likely veep contenders:

http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/veepstakes

[Mr. Morden]

Another day, another veep denial from Condoleeza Rice (though this one actually leaves some slight wiggle room.....not that she'll be picked anyway):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37Jtiv8lOmY&feature=player_embedded

[Mr. Morden]

A fun retrospective on VP denials from elections past:

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/27/155848653/translating-the-veepstakes

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[Mr. Morden]

Jindal-Pawlenty head-to-head veep-athon in Ohio:

http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/rating-the-jindalpawlenty-veep.php

[Mr. Morden]

Romney has absolutely no reason to announce his VP pick until the last possible moment.

Sure he does.  He may be able to get the current short-listers to campaign for him as surrogates, but they're not doing it at nearly the same pace as any of them would after being officially named as his running mate.  If he picks someone now, then he'll have a new full-time candidate to help campaign around the country and raise money.

[Mr. Morden]

Will the advantage that comes with having a second full-time campaigner make enough of a difference to Romney that he'll buck this trend?

I don't know.  Maybe.  We'll find out soon enough, since there's not that much time before the Olympics.

But keep in mind: 1) If Romney is going to pick someone "boring" like Portman or Pawlenty, then he's not likely to get a bump out of the announcement anyway, no matter when the announcement is made.  So then there really would be no point in waiting, and 2) The national conventions have been getting later since about 2004 or so (note how many of the dates you give above are in July).  So yes, historically candidates have waited until the convention to announce their pick.  But that usually hasn't meant waiting until the last week of August, barely more than two months before general election, and little more than a month before the VP candidate is expected to debate.

[Mr. Morden]

The argument that I've heard is that waiting allows the Romney camp to amass more information about a presumptive pick (as the Obama campaign and the media investigate everyone who is being speculated on), and that because of this there's no point in going public earlier than he must.

Assuming there is more vetting to be done.  None of us is inside the Romney campaign, so we don't know how far along the vetting is.  They may well already have all the information they're ever going to get, so there's nothing to be gained from waiting longer.  Or maybe not.  We just don't know.

Also, yes, he's already using the short list on the stump.  But not as much as a full time running mate would.  And a Rob Portman or whoever else it might be just isn't going to attract nearly as much attention on the stump before he's named as the VP nominee in waiting.

Ramesh Ponnuru makes another point about not waiting if the pick is boring, though I think this is secondary:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-25/who-should-romney-pick-for-vice-president-.html

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[Mr. Morden]

Portman confirmed he's being vetted. Isn't that kinda breaking the rules?

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/veepstakes-portman-met-with-romney-aides/

He simply confirmed that he'd had six meetings with Romney campaign people in a span of six hours.  That could be for anything, no? 

[Mr. Morden]

Palin predicts that Romney will pick a running mate who isn't like Palin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-zoBEZEeEeU

[Mr. Morden]

Fresh denials of vetting on Jeb Bush, Nikki Haley, and Rick Santorum:

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/election/2012/07/10/haley-bush-reportedly-not-vetted-for-vp-spot/

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/09/santorum-romney-hasnt-called-for-me-vp-vetting/

Christie refuses to say whether he's being vetted:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/07/christie_says_he_doesnt_think.html

Current list of people who refuse to say whether they're being vetted:

Christie
Jindal
McDonnell
Pawlenty
Portman
Rubio
Ryan
Thune
Tom Graves

[Mr. Morden]

Are we sure that Drudge's tipster wasn't Winfield?

[Mr. Morden]

A sample of Rice's denials of interest from as recently as a few weeks ago:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/drudge-report-lists-condi-rice-as-top-romney-vp-candidate/

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[Mr. Morden]

A Democratic Super PAC has spent months compiling oppo research on three of the leading contenders: Pawlenty, Portman, and Rubio:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/exclusive-democrats-dump-opposition-research-on-top-vice-presidential-contenders/?=id2

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VeepMistakes.com won't load for me.

In any case, they apparently have 350 pages of files on Portman, 492 on Pawlenty, and 555 on Rubio.

[Mr. Morden]

Regarding the Condoleezza Rice rumor...I should point out that just in the last few weeks, Rice has started to become more politically active.  She did her first ever fundraising event last month (for "ShePAC", a pro-GOP women's group):

http://www.politico.com/politicoinfluence/0612/politicoinfluence284.html

then followed that up with a fundraiser for Romney.  She's also endorsed several candidates in GOP primaries this cycle:

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/236727-condaleeza-rice-endorses-ben-quayle-in-member-member-race

Maybe the Drudge rumor came from people in Rice's political orbit, who think she'd benefit from veep speculation.  Exactly what her ultimate goal is here, though, I don't know.

[Mr. Morden]

So, any predictions as to when the announcement will be? I'm hoping this week. Little choice if he wants it pre-convention since next week will be drowned out by the Olympics.

The way these things tend to work, we'd likely hear some kind of pre-announcement rumors or hints about the announcement taking place at a particular location and time, probably at least three days in advance.  So the fact that we haven't heard any such thing yet, means that we've probably already run out of time pre-Olympics.

Maybe the announcement will be on Thursday of this week or something, but that's probably the limit, before it makes sense to delay until before the Olympics.  It's not going to be made on a weekend, unless the weekend is immediately before the convention, and next week Monday we're just a couple of days before Romney leaves for Europe.

[Mr. Morden]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6_mWlAOLn0

She gave a terrible interview on ABC. Does this take her out of the running for VP?

Bad, though of course it doesn't match the ultimate veep implosion from four years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0b59Jlbq1M

[Mr. Morden]

Thune admits that he's been to Boston to meet with Romney senior advisors, including Beth Myers:

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/237983-thune-rising-gop-senator-on-romney-veepstakes-and-his-future

He won't directly say if he's being vetted, but there aren't a whole lot of other reasons to meet with Beth Myers, since she's basically doing full time veep vetting.

[Mr. Morden]

NYT on T-Paw. Don't think Romney is going to pick someone who got left at the altar last time. Plus Romney wants an attack dog, which Pawlenty is not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/us/politics/pawlenty-looked-at-as-romney-running-mate.html?pagewanted=all

The most interesting thing in that story is this:

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[Mr. Morden]

Race 4 2012 claims the rollout is this week.

http://race42012.com/2012/07/16/the-race-4-2012-rumor-mill-back-end-edition/

Yeah, they point out that Romney has nothing on his schedule on Thursday and Friday.  Which, AFAIK, is true, as of now.  Politico's calendar has him campaigning in Bowling Green, Ohio on Wednesday, but then nothing on Thursday.  If anyone notices anything being scheduled for Romney for Thursday or beyond, then post it here.  For that matter, anything scheduled for any of the presumed short-listers.

And the AP has this:

link

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Also, on the Thune being vetted thing, the full context of his remarks don't sound as enticing as the earlier soundbite:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/07/thune-not-actually-such-a-vp-tease-129109.html

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[Mr. Morden]

National Journal has their latest (possibly last) veepstakes rankings:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/your-favorite-vice-hotline-s-veepstakes-power-rankings-20120716

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[Mr. Morden]

Some schedules this week for three of the most mentioned names:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/portman-keeps-vague-ohio-schedule-friday

Pawlenty: Scheduled to be in Minnesota for the rest of this week.

Portman: In Washington on Wednesday & Thursday.  "Portman spokesman Jeff Sadosky added to BuzzFeed that he will be in Northwest Ohio on Friday for a mix of official and non-official events."

Rubio: In Washington all week for votes.

[Mr. Morden]

While veep fever has picked up a bit, I don't think it's quite reached the frenzy that it did in the final days before both McCain and Obama's picks four years ago.  I remain somewhat skeptical that it's going to be announced this week.  If we don't have a specific time and place for the announcement announced or leaked to the media by this afternoon, then I don't think it's going to happen this week (which means that it won't happen until after the Olympics).

I mean, it's got to take more than a day to throw together a veep rollout campaign event.  Some of the details of the announcement event would have to leak out more than a day in advance.