As we get closer and closer to the time when Barack Obama will presumably announce his choice of running mate, more information is leaking out about the process behind the decision. One very interesting tidbit was just reported by Politico's Mike Allen: Former Obama rival Hillary Clinton was not vetted as a potential vice-presidential nominee.
Allen quotes one unnamed Democratic official as saying that Clinton "was not asked for a single piece of paper. She and Senator Obama have never had a single conversation about it." The source also says that Clinton never met with Obama's vetting team. In his article on all this, Allen pointedly contrasts this report with Obama's having frequently said Clinton "would be on anybody's short list."
Responding to the story, a Democrat sympathetic to Clinton told Salon, "If Mike's right, the PUMAs are going to burn down the Pepsi Center" (where the Democratic convention is being held). Many Democrats have believed, however, that a formal vetting process wasn't really necessary when it came to Clinton, as all the information that would normally be examined is already public.
Separately, the Associated Press is reporting that an otherwise obscure Democratic congressman from Texas, Chet Edwards, has been vetted, and that he is a finalist for the post. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been a vocal backer of Edwards'.
And in what appears to be a sign of how close we are to an announcement, CNN's Jessica Yellin says that on Thursday night, Obama called some of the people on his shortlist to inform them that they had not been chosen.
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