According to CBS News:

Barack Obama heads to Springfield, Illinois on Saturday, where he is expected to announce his running mate. The two will appear at a rally at the Old State Capitol, kicking off a pre-convention tour.

The actual text message/email announcement would be "Friday evening."  I take that to mean 5-8pm Eastern time (closer to 5pm if they want the evening network news broadcasts, such as they are on a Friday).

to not be the one to send it. The text message I got was from somebody else - and this person had NOTHING to do with the Obama campaign and no information what-so-ever about who his choice for VP would be.

He didn't tell me the name of his VP like his website promised that he would. How can he let me down like this when I-

Oh! Another text! That must be him! This must be it! He kept his promise after all! His VP will be:

I did a nslookup and whois search of all of the following domains.  I looked for (1) similar IP or registrant to barackobama.com; (2) other similar features.

Only Sebelius and Biden are all parked at the same place, but only Hagel appears to be set up with server load balancing, i.e. set up to handle a ton of traffic by using different servers.

More on the flip.

Sometime in the next 1 – 200 hours, most of us that read this site will be getting a text message. We all have opinions, some stronger than others, about what the name in that message should/must be. One thing we can all agree on is that Senator Obama and his staff have spent far more time and effort thinking about all the possible permutations than any of us. They have more resources and more information than any of us to decide on who the running mate should be. The decision they make will be a hard one, but they will have made every possible effort to make sure it’s the best one.

The unconditional monetary love here at this site scares me.

Let it be known that your "friends of the left" include me and many others who are critical of his decisions as of late.

Would you like to continue?

In 24 hours or therabout, Senator John Kerry will most likely become Obama's pick for Vice-President. For the past few days he has kept a low profile away from public and media attention but this will change in the coming days.
There is going to be little excitment with this pick among all party coalition but it makes the most sense.
It will be a safe pick by Senator Obama who is very thoughtful, cautious and calculative.
Senator Kerry, may not bridge the strong division in the party before the election but it will be a reasonable insurance that Obama will at least hold the Kerry States and tilt a couple of Purple States that have since matured and ripe enough to be added into Blue States.

That's right you heard it here first right after I received a text message from the campaign with only one symbol: Pi. After all there are few, if any downsides to pie as a running mate. See what I mean over the fold.

It's customary for a Trial Ballon to float up and either get shot down or continue an upward trajectory...

What has occurred in the last several days and especially this afternoon is nothing short of a Biden BLIMP...  Conventional Wisdom is congeeling around Senator Joe Biden and now the CW is officially signing off on this decision as smart, safe, and effective.  If you approve of Joe, vote in the poll below after rec'in this diary to let the Obama web folks know dKos now approves.

Up First:  Blind sourced story via MSNBC's Howard Fineman

Within the last few hours I've spoken with two of the finalists for the role of Barack Obama's running-mate, and to two other sources who are close to the process.

He is a lively and feisty if unpredictable campaigner with working-class roots and a street-level feel for the hot spots of the globe — which he can use to go toe-to-toe with Sen. John McCain.

"If I had to bet my life on it, I'd bet it is Joe," said one of the other contenders.

Said another, "Barack is moving toward a seasoned Beltway type, and that probably means Biden."

Eight years ago, then Governor George W. Bush revealingly joked about his backers at the 2000 Al Smith Dinner.  "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores," Bush said, adding, "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."  With his own quip Saturday night that "$5 million" is his definition of rich," John McCain made no mistake that he is Bush's natural heir.

There's a little thing that wins Presidential campaigns that unfortunately has been missing from that of one Barack Obama - it's called FIGHTING.  It can be base.  It can be immature at times.  But in the back of the electorate's mind it is often a necessary component when it comes to picking  their President, and, as usual, we have not been doing enough of it nor doing it in an effective manner.  

not going to be perfect.

No, that's right, regardless of who Obama deems to run with, that person will have flaws.  Probably a ton of them.

So as the latest buzz keeps on keeping on, (apparently now on Biden...so we have a bunch of diaries ad infinitum about HIS flaws now...having sufficiently trashed Kaine and Bayh as much as possible), let's remember whoever it is, they are not the "perfect" fit for Obama, or for the party, or even the country. Just ain't gonna happen.

If you had told me a month ago - hell, probably a day ago - that I would suggest what I am about to suggest, I would have told you that you were crazy, but here it is anyway:

I think Hillary Clinton would be a solid running mate.

I can hear the complaints already.  Hillary is the DLC wing, she is everything we've worked to defeat, she is the personification of the middle-of-the-road bumbling that helped bury this party for 40 years, she goes against the Change theme, etc., etc.

But hear me out - or read me out, anyway.

It is almost certainly too late at this point to influence Barack Obama's choice of Vice-President at all, let alone in a diary soon to be buried on this site's Recent List and then shunted off to obscurity.  Nevertheless, I want to take a swipe at all of the talk of the strategy behind whom Obama should pick as his running-mate (in which I admit I have been a participant.)

The one good thing that has come out of discussion on this site about this topic is that it has laid bare that, in the words of the political precept, "nobody knows nothing."  I can make a case for or against any one of dozens of candidates, on the grounds of their helping or hurting the ticket, with decent plausibility based on characteristics of this year's electorate that I don't actually know, you don't actually know, and we may never be able to determine even after the fact.

Let's leave "helping the ticket" to the people who, at least, have had a chance to poll and focus group it.  Let's talk about what really matters.

Once again, Obama has surprised me by doing something I had all but thought he would not do...  just like he always seems to.

This time, with all the media frenzy fawning over BidenBayhKaine... Obama up and tossed them all a big curveball.

And again, in the end, it looks like a no-brainer.  

Any reasonable measure of the net advantages vs. negatives of all potential candidates leaves one candidate standing far above the rest:

Nato Commander, Executive experience, Economics degree, past presidential election experience, a non-washington insider, former clinton-surrogate, attack dog willing to legitimately call McSame's BS over-use of his military experience and frothing hawkishness...

Guys, I’m getting hammered by Right Wing friends about Obama’s supposed cover-up regarding the Illinois and Federal BAIPA laws.


I hate to post a diary just to call on folks to do some fact checking, but I need answers to the following:

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Senator, if you pick an insider, pick the best one.

Hi. John Sidney McCain III, here. I know a lot of you Daily Kossacks aren't of a mind to listen to my straight talk, but being the original maverick that I am, I am going to very publicly and proudly cross the aisle and tell you just how, in my own words (more or less, with the help of one of your regular contributors) share with you over the next several days how my experiences as a prisoner of war for seven years in Vietnam shaped my life, my character, my resolve, my views and my candidacy to become the next President of the United States who, despite sharing the same party, the same views, the same talking point and the same most wonderful special mancrush of a hug, will in no way be like the previous administration.

So, I'd like to start off this first part of what I think will be a five part series with the easiest, least controversial topic in American politics: Abortion.

As you hip netroots types like to say: More below the break. Heh!