Obama's newly minted running mate will join the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee onstage Saturday at a rally in this capital city where Obama began his White House bid, a campaign official said.
Obama and his vice presidential choice will appear in front of the former state Capitol where Abraham Lincoln once served, a senior Obama adviser said yesterday on condition of anonymity. The last time Obama appeared there, he announced he was running for president.
The disclosure narrowed the window Obama has to announce his running mate. The list of possibilities is widely believed to be down to Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Evan Bayh of Indiana, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who planned to campaign with Obama tomorrow in Kaine's home state.
Obama strategist Anita Dunn would not respond directly when asked if the Springfield event would be Obama's first appearance with his choice, but she suggested the two would not necessarily be related. The campaign has said it will announce the choice in a cell-phone text message to supporters.
"We could pick up the VP any time," Dunn said in an interview.
The campaign's announcement said only that the Illinois senator would begin his trip to the party's convention at Saturday's event. The Democratic National Convention begins Monday in Denver.
At a town-hall meeting yesterday in Raleigh, N.C., Obama repeatedly said he when discussing the qualities he sought in a running mate, even as campaign officials cautioned not to read much into his choice of pronouns.
"Let me tell you first what I won't do: I won't hand over my energy policy to my vice president and not know necessarily what he's doing," Obama told the audience. "My vice president . . . will be a member of the executive branch. He won't be one of these fourth branches of government where he thinks he's above the law," an apparent reference to Vice President Cheney's handling of his office.
Those believed to be on Obama's short list were keeping mum. Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, told reporters gathered outside his home yesterday in Wilmington: "I'm not the guy. See ya," as he drove off in his truck, according to ABC News footage.
Obama, during an address yesterday morning to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Orlando, Fla., praised Biden for proposing an additional $1 billion of reconstruction projects in the Republic of Georgia after the Russian invasion.
Only Obama; his wife, Michelle; a handful of his most senior advisers; and his two-member search committee know for certain who has been vetted and discussed. Staffers were in place to support Obama's pick, including more than a dozen seasoned operatives who have set up shop in the campaign's Chicago headquarters.
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