Comes via Tucker Carlson in this Jonathan Martin piece:
“The VP story is a little bit like sex,” observes Tucker Carlson, the writer and NBC political analyst who falls into the skeptic column. “When it’s happening, you’re totally focused on it, it’s all you want. Then, the second it’s over, you can barely remember why it seemed so important.”
So true. Except that the person who "breaks" the VP news* will try to remind you how important it was for days and days after the fact. Not sure how that fits into the analogy, but it's really annoying. See Andrea Mitchell** and John Edwards from back in 2004. (Actually, see this and this. She actually lists it high up in her bio.)
--Noam Scheiber
*Quick question for your next J-school seminar: Does it really count as news if the people with the information you want are going to make it available, completely voluntarily, in the next few days or hours and it's not particularly urgent that anyone know sooner? Methinks not. But the political press corps sees this one differently...
**Any bets on who "breaks" the VP stories this time around? This is quite possibly the only thing less rewarding than speculating about who the nominees themselves will be... I think Mitchell's a long shot, since she's been with the Clinton campaign throughout the primaries. I say CNN's Jessica Yellin for Obama, and Politico's Mike Allen for McCain.