While Washington Post columnist Chris Cillizza has positioned Bayh at the top of the heap for a few weeks now, after getting tips to Bilerico-Indiana and making some logical conclusions the choice is obvious. Why?

I'm going to put my neck out on the line by making a prediction. Barack Obama will announce his vice-presidential choice Wednesday morning. It will be Indiana Senator Evan Bayh .

Here's my reasoning:





The Olympics start on Friday and run until the Democratic convention starts. He won't want to compete with the Olympics for press coverage. He'll announce before the Olympics starts. If he announces on Wednesday morning, he'll get coverage all day and be on the news cycle until the Opening Ceremonies knock him off the top spot.

Barack Obama is coming to the state on Tuesday afternoon for a campaign stop in Elkhart, Indiana. He'll be attending with Evan Bayh. The press has been told to plan on staying until Wednesday afternoon/evening. Why would he spend so much time in Indiana with nothing on his public calendar?

Staying around Indiana allows Obama and Bayh to travel to Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio - all important states in this election. When you've just announced your VP, those are states you'll want to visit - especially since Bayh's reputation will help the most in those states.

The website ObamaBayh08.com is taken. For a tiny sliver of time late last week, you could type in the URL and you'd be forwarded to another site. Where do you think it took you? The Democratic Party website. (screencap from WHOIS below) I just got an invite from the Obama campaign to attend an appearance on Wednesday that isn't on Obama's official calendar. Why not? The campaign said, "I can't tell you what the event is about, but we want to make sure you have a ticket so you can cover it for the Bilerico Project. We want Bilerico Project to be there for this one."



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So what do you think? Is my thinking flawed or have I reached the logical conclusion? By the time you add in the case for Evan Bayh - foreign policy experience, former Clinton supporter, popularity in the Midwest, not a media whore, experience as a popular former Governor and his youth and good looks - it seems like a slam dunk to me.

12:20pm Update: While a highly placed Indiana Democrat who requested anonymity has confirmed that my theory is correct, numerous Democrats I've spoken to coming out of this weekend's IDEA convention stated that they were given the indication that no decision would be made this week.

1:40pm Update: Brian Howey has a solid commentary on the Howey Political Report that I wanted to point out. Brian waffles between an announcement this week or the week leading up to the convention. Two other journalists have chimed in to say they've been told to expect the announcement in that last week as well. Am I off on my timing and this is just another test balloon?

From Howey's story:

Bayh will be there to introduce Obama, his spokesman Eric Kleiman confirmed for Howey Politics Indiana this morning. What we don't know is the time. The Obama campaign said doors will open at 7:15 a.m., but there is no starting time established. If it's before 10 a.m,, it's highly unlikely this would be a veep rollout. Anything after 10 a.m. would allow West Coast viewers to watch on the Today Show, Good Morning America or Morning Joe. Most vice presidential rollouts tend to come in the afternoon (i.e. George H.W. Bush announced Dan Quayle's selection at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday during the Republican National Convention in 1988). We know there is a long press flight layover in South Bend, with the Obama media arriving at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and not leaving until 3:25 p.m. Wednesday. It seems like a long layover, but an explanation could be that Obama will be at his Chicago home for the night. Democratic media consultant Chris Sautter was at Obama's Chicago headquarters and spent time with David Axelrod last weekend. " He seemed to me more a like a guy who was going to finally get some rest over the weekend rather than someone gearing up for a major rollout the next week," said Sautter. "I could be completely wrong, but everyone seemed a little loose for a VP announcement. Larry Grisolano told me he was going away for the weekend. On the other hand, David perked up when I told him that Indiana had the highest jump in unemployment in the month of June. So anything is possible, I guess."

...

Finally, the event will be held in the Concord HS basketball gym. Veepstakes usually aren't rolled out in a basketball gym. To which we respond: yes, but this is Indiana.

Aug 6 Update: Well, so much for predictions. It's time for me to eat a healthy serving of crow.