There’s a fair amount of excitement this week in Elkhart, Indiana, over the possibility that Barack Obama’s visit there on Wednesday may be more than a routine campaign stop. I’m not privvy to any special information about when and where Obama will be announcing his running mate, or who it will be. But it seems to me that the evidence here is pretty sketchy:
Democratic sources say Secret Service is working out details with local police that would include a motorcade. The event in Elkhart would draw media coverage in nearby Michigan. Sources say the details appear to be different than a normal presidential candidate visit.
It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that, these days, the Secret Service has to work with local police to arrange a motorcade when Obama gets out of bed in the morning. It also doesn’t make much sense that Obama would announce a veep pick and then, almost immediately, go on vacation.
All that said, Evan Bayh’s stock as a potential running mate seems pretty high these days among the (largely uninformed) Democratic insider types that I’ve been talking to, not least because of this feisty performance against Joe Lieberman a few weeks back on Fox: