[cacophony]

very savvy campaign strategy on the mccain campaign's part tonight. they released the information that mccain has settled on a VP running mate and timed it to reach the media in the gap between biden's speech and obama's speech. so now all of the media pundits are spinning their wheels talking about, "who could it be?" and repeating mccain's name when they would otherwise be winding up to obama's appearance. and in fact CNN spent several minutes showing the convention floor but mccain's news and name is all over the crawl. they're now back to talking about obama but i guarantee they'll revisit mccain's news as they're trying to come up with enough brainless chatter to fill the moments before the speech.

the announcement included a statement that they wouldn't reveal the name until tomorrow because tonight is obama's night. smart. they'll reveal the name tomorrow and usurp some of the continuing rehashing of obama's speech and get mccain's name rolling around and taking some of the spotlight back.

i've got to hand it to them. pretty smart move.