The summer silly season has hit political America. Paris Hilton is featuring in campaign advertising, the media is obsessed with John Edwards's infidelity and the Olympics, and there are lacklustre poll results for both presidential candidates.
All this will change as soon as the Olympics are over and just ahead of the Democrat Convention, when Senator Barack Obama will announce his vice-presidential running mate. Senator John McCain could make his own announcement as soon as Friday August 29, the day after Obama makes his speech formally accepting his party's nomination in front of an anticipated crowd of 75,000, in a bid to undermine Obama's expected bounce in the polls.
Those not caught up in the August political doldrums are drawing up lists of potential vice-presidential candidates, watching the comings and going of the vetting teams, and noting the people Obama and McCain are spending time with. But this year more so than most, the candidates are playing their cards close to their chests, and as always, only those who don't know are saying while those who know are not.
For a number of reasons, the selection of running mates will be more critical this time around than usual. Both Obama and McCain are atypical candidates who need running mates who will help widen their appeal and win needed states. Obama needs a running mate who will help him win over white, blue collar workers and gain the electoral college votes of a state like Virginia or Indiana.
McCain needs to appeal to the Republican conservative base and capture a state such as Michigan or Ohio.
Obama himself has enough ''wow'' factor that his running partner needs only solid economic and/or defence policy expertise. McCain must balance out his age and a perception that he represents a third Bush term. For reasons of race and age, both vice-presidential choices must present as having the ability to instantly step into the presidency, should the worst happen.
The US Constitution only provides two functions for a vice-president. One is to preside over the Senate, and the other is to be ready to succeed to a president if called upon.
Originally, the candidate who finished second in Electoral College votes was named vice-president. But it seems that the framers of the constitution, who thought that this system would provide for a credible vice-president and an orderly succession, did not anticipate the creation of political parties and the disruption this would cause when the president and vice president were not from the same party or were simply ideologically opposed.
These problems emerged early, when President Thomas Jefferson, who had been an antagonistic Democratic-Republican Vice President to Federalist John Adams, had to contend with the animosity of Vice-President Aaron Burr, despite their shared political party.
Jefferson then led the effort to pass the 12th amendment to the Constitution in 1804. This requires that the presidential and vice-presidential candidates run together on a ticket, and that they cannot be from the same state.
Initially these tickets were formed by party leaders at the conventions and were aimed more at pleasing party factions than at finding compatible partners. It was FDR who first pushed to choose his own ticket in 1940.
Since then, there have been as many ways and rationales for choosing running mates as there have been vice-presidential candidates. But ideological compatibility does not seem to have played a major role in the choice. Which is presumably why Hillary Clinton remains on Obama's list of vice-presidential candidates and Mitt Romney is on McCain's.
Obama, in a recent interview, said his vice-presidential choice would be ''somebody who can help me govern, who I can work with, who has a shared vision''. ''I'm not interested in a vice-president who I send off to go to funerals,'' he said. ''I want somebody who is going to roll up their sleeves and be willing to work.''
McCain has been less forthcoming saying only that he is aware of the importance of this issue given his age.
In reality there are just two key issues for the vice-presidential nominees. Can they pass the vetting process with a clean slate and no hidden skeletons and can they get through the campaign without messing up?
Lesley Russell is the Menzies Foundation Fellow at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney/Australian National University. She worked as a senior political adviser in the US House of Representatives from 1984-1991.
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