It’s Day Three of the Veep Tease Siege, and we know nothing more than we did when the Inner Circle hinted that the announcement would come any time between Wednesday morning and Saturday afternoon. The secret is being closely held by Barry, his iPhone, and Allah.

But the Unthinkable is now on the table, as everyone is considering the JFK-LBJ shotgun wedding of the new millennium. Sure, they hate each other, their supporters hate each other, and Harry Shearer’s drooling over the prospect of running clintonsomething for another four years, but let’s face it: two or three Justices are ready to kick, and the PUMA faith that a Demrat Senate would push back an unsatisfactory Geezer nomination ignores everything we’ve learned the past seven years.

Would it float? Who knows? If nothing else, it would put a new spin on the inevitable recriminations eleven weeks from now.

Obama says he’s chosen his VP — won’t reveal who it is yet [USA Today]

Look, we’re not going to be caught sleeping when the media climaxes over Barry’s veep choice. Well, actually we are, so once again we’re running this morning’s post in antici… PATION! that the Golden Text Message will warm the hearts of millions before we wake up around ten-ish in Sandy Eggo.

Today in the Not Her Spotlite is Evan Bayh, who other than being Birch’s son (twig?), we know absolutely nothing about. Which still probably puts us ahead of most non-Indianans.

Actually, we do know that he scares the shit out of the neighbors when he drags his son’s black lacrosse bag outside his car. But then we now also know his sons play lacrosse. What snooty elite Eastern academy offers that?

Bayh’s Drive-By Gym Bag Drop-Off Incident [ABC]

Or maybe not. Maybe it’s Son of Birch, maybe it’s She Who Is Not Her. But we’re now within the Veep Horizon, and some of us tend to sleep past noon Eastern, so if Barry texts his BFFs with his BVP this morning, we wanted to be on top of the story. We can always change the text later and applaud our mad prognostication skillz.

While we’re waiting on the Barry Tease, why not vote on some Barry Tees? (Plouffle, call us: “I Rock Barack.” The non-voting kids will love it!) We really like the design that makes us look like a hopeless tool. No, wait, that’s all of them.

Obama and veep choice to campaign on Saturday [AP]

David Brooks in the Times:

McCain and his advisers have been compelled to adjust to the hostile environment around them. They have been compelled, at least in their telling, to abandon the campaign they had hoped to run.

See, it’s our fault. We won’t let him run nice. His blood is on our hands.

Oh, and McCain is a former POW who shared a Christian tryst with a guard. Sorry, contractual requirement.

The Education of McCain [NYT]

“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.”
– McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace, responding to allegations that he heard Saturday night’s questions while driving to the event

• “The insinuation that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated on his accident-crippled wife to marry a younger rich heiress is outrageous.”
• “The insinuation that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, would vote to undermine the Geneva Conventions is outrageous.”
• “The insinuation that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, would bully regulators on behalf of major contributor Charles Keating is outrageous.”
• “The insinuation that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, is accepting campaign donations from the Bonanno crime family and once sent Joe Bananas birthday greetings is outrageous.”
• “The insinuation that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, would suddenly call himself a Baptist without being baptised is outrageous.”
• “The insinuation that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, once called Leonardo DiCaprio ‘an androgynous wimp‘ is — wait, who disagrees?”
• “The insinuation that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, would pander about his POW experience in a presidential campaign is outrageous.”

Despite Assurances, McCain Wasn’t in a ‘Cone of Silence’ [NYT]

Darragh Murphy is so angry at Barack Obama, she not only founded pro-Hillary Puma PAC in early June, she also donated $500 to John McCain.

In 2000.

Although the PTO is not yet aware of her temporal transportation breakthrough, evidence of its existence can be found at the FEC, where two bloggers independently discovered records of the five-Benjamin throwdown to McCain’s primary campaign against George Bush.

Murphy is understandably incensed that somebody violated her stealth tech company’s NDA:

“Thank you as well for reminding me that I DID EVERYTHING I COULD in 2000 to prevent GEORGE BUSH from becoming the Republican nominee, including donating money to McCain’s campaign and voting for him in the Republican primary here in Massachusetts because I was confident that my hero, AL GORE, would win the primary for the Democrats.”

The self-described lifelong Democrat must also be concerned that a competitor has stolen one of her time-machine prototypes, since no record of any other political donations by her can be found. Not in 2000, not in 2004, not in 2008.

Some observers have proposed an alternate theory: Murphy is a longtime McCain supporter who conceived and executed a brilliant Black Ops maneuver to take advantage of dissension among Soccer Moms. But skeptics consider that too far-fetched to merit consideration.

Puma PAC’s founder Darragh Murphy (hearts) John McCain [Rumproast, June 25]

PUMAs are Swiftboats [Pandagon, June 28]

PUMA De-Fanged on Hardball [AOL Political Machine, Aug. 15]

It’s not the most sophisticated presentation, and perhaps not the most sophisticated technique, but we’re taking a liking to Electoral-vote.com — mainly because it collates state polls that we’ve had trouble finding, and provides a better daily snapshot of the race than meaningless national polls.

Currently Obama “wins” the Electoral Collage with 275 votes (270 needed), but the master count takes the polls as is, without the margin of error. More helpful is the map itself: anything white is a statistical tossup, and even the lighter reds and blues are so close they might as well be in play.

Only the strong reds and blues are locked down (for now), and those show Obama leading 165-131.

Today, anyway. Back on August 1, it was 197-97.

It’s not easy to jump to any day at will, but the site also offers a nice tracking graph, annotated with signifcant events — including, for comparison, 2004. “Reagan dies”, “Fahrenheit 9/11 opens” and “Swift boat ad” pretty much sum up that summer…

Electoral-vote.com