Thursday, August 21, 2008

Oh, the suspense is boring me

So Obama is going to let the world know his vice presidential pick soon. A week later, McCain will do the same.

And then those persons will make a bunch of largely underreported speeches in the less important campaign areas, participate in a forgettable debate, then one of them will be elected vice president. S/he will then enter a job whose main duty is to wake up, say "is the president alive? Great, now what?"

And for every Cheney who muscled his way into being in charge, you have...well, nearly everybody else. Truman, who didn't know about the atom bomb until FDR's widow told him. Or this guy, a man so underwhelming that he managed to make Lincoln's Vice President into a role negligible to American history. Let's face it, Vice President Gore could have been kidnapped for months before the general public noticed.

Sure, there's an outside chance s/he may end up as president, either upon untimely death -- though one could debate if McCain's passing at 73 would be "untimely" -- or springboard to a future campaign. But let's be honest with ourselves; much of this discussion is just to fill time and space until something interesting happens.

Maybe McCain could roll out his top five right now, and eliminate one every other day -- let's go whole-hog on the showbiz aspect of this race for second place.

Just kidding -- it's really me. Just trying to lower expectations.

2 comments:

noternie said...

It has dragged out, but there's not much the Obama folks can do about it. I'm sure they long ago laid out the schedule for selecting and announcing the VP. But when the press starts the heavy speculation it can seem like the campaign is dragging things out.

Can you imagine the hype and coverage that would've happened back in the day? Gail Huff standing in a dark town square waiting for Paul Revere to make the walk to the barn to mount the horse. Bianca de la Garza then throwing it to Shiba Russel as she waits for the Brittish to arrive in MetroWest.

All the while "Musket Missy" de la Garza and Sean Kelly sitting at the desk speculating about how "Red Tape" is stalling the "Red Coats."

Quriltai said...

Was listening to WBZ last night, and the host was nattering on about how it was Obama's fault for building this up, and stretching it out too much. If I recall, the media doesn't to sit vigil for 3 days on Obama HQ rather than use the time for something more productive...