August Surprise?

As Tom Petty once sang, the waiting is the hardest part. In past elections, the VP candidates were typically announced in early July, so what's the hold up?

While the 24-hour news world was coming into its own in 2004, this time the campaigns are taking media manipulation to a new level, prompting pieces like this one from ABC called The Art of the Vice Presidential Rollout.

Campaigns are being forced to space the news over several days, and must anticipate that another major news story could erupt at any time to disrupt their best-laid plans.

Sen. Obama is planning to announce his VP pick via text message, a stunt that has built interest from the media  as well as encouraged more users to sign up for messages on his web site, and will allow the news to trickle out in a new way.

That said, the "veepstakes" has been a source of unending stories the past few weeks, for PBS and the rest of the news media. Blogger Chris Cillizza, whose column in The Washington Post has been taking VP guesses for months, speculates on the latest crop with Tavis Smiley.

And Gwen Ifill discusses the frenzy over vice-presidential picks and what to expect at the upcoming conventions in an audio interview.