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WASHINGTON: Republican presidential hopeful John
McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama are in the final
stretch of the process of selecting their running mates—even if
they won’t openly say so.
Asked about his timeline for
announcing a choice, and how many potential number-twos he was
considering, McCain sidestepped the question.
“I would love to, but I
can’t. And I’m sure you understand,” he told the ABC network
on Monday.
But some are claiming insight
into when the announcement will be made.
“Sources close to Sen. John
McCain’s presidential campaign are suggesting he will reveal the
name of his vice presidential selection this week while Sen. Barack
Obama is getting the headlines on his foreign trip,” veteran
Washington reporter Robert Novak wrote on his blog Tuesday.
“The name of McCain’s running
mate has not been disclosed, but [former Massachusetts governor]
Mitt Romney has led the speculation recently.”
The McCain camp offered no
credence to the blog, with an aide merely stating Tuesday that there
would be “no announcement today.”
But South Carolina Senator
Lindsey Graham, a close friend to McCain, fueled the speculation
about Romney.
“I think he’s very much a
contender for the job,” Graham was quoted as saying on the website
of congressional newspaper The Hill.
It was all quiet on the Obama
front.
“We’re not speaking to
anyone. This is for Senator Obama to share at the appropriate
time,” said Eric Holder, whom Obama asked to vet potential vice
presidents along with Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John
F. Kennedy.
But even as they keep the lid on
things, both of their parties’ presumptive nominees have been
offering clues as to who their running mates may be.
Romney, McCain’s one-time
bitter rival for the Republican White House nomination, has emerged
as a possibility for McCain, and the two men campaigned side by side
in Michigan on Friday.
“Mitt has been of tremendous
help to my campaign . . . He does a better job for me than he did
for himself,” McCain quipped Tuesday at a town hall meeting in New
Hampshire when asked if he had mended fences with his former rival.
Last week at a rally in Indiana,
Obama appeared with two people widely named as possible vice
presidential timbre: Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, a former supporter
of Obama’s nomination rival Hillary Clinton, and Sam Nunn, a
former Georgia senator with ample national security credentials.
On his recent visit to
Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama took the stage with two other possible
running mates, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel—a Republican who opposes
the Iraq war—and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, both of them defense
experts.
And they are not Obama’s only
“could bes”—also in the mix are Joe Biden, current head of the
Senate foreign relations committee, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
On the Republican side, Tim
Pawlenty and Charlie Crist, governors of Minnesota and Florida,
respectively, are frequently mentioned.
Obama was expected to announce
his pick ahead of the party convention August 25 to 28, although
analysts say it is unlikely he will do so during the Olympic Games
in Beijing August 8 to 24, which Americans are expected to follow
closely.
--AFP
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