Timing Romney's Vice Presidential Announcement

Mitt Romney will announce his vice presidential candidate at some point this summer. The Romney campaign is no doubt spending serious time strategizing not only about the person Romney will select as VP, but also about the timing of the announcement.

The VP announcement is a guaranteed publicity generator for Romney, giving him three to five days of almost continuous news cycle coverage as the media delve into the details of the background of the nominee, talk about the implications of the choice, and, in general, bloviate. Under the adage that any news coverage is good coverage, it is certain that the Romney campaign is doing a lot of thinking about when the announcement will do them the most good.

Barack Obama announced Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate on Aug. 22, 2008, just three days before the Democratic convention began in Denver on Aug. 25. In very similar fashion, Republican nominee John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate on Aug. 29, 2008, just three days before the Sept. 1 beginning of the GOP convention in Minnesota. Following that historical pattern, we would expect Romney to announce his vice presidential candidate on Aug. 24, just three days before this year's GOP convention gets underway in Tampa Bay, Florida.

There is no guarantee that Romney's team will follow this pattern, however. Announcing the nominee earlier would have the benefit of maximizing the spread of publicity and visibility for the Romney campaign across a longer period of time this summer. But there are several periods of time between now and Aug. 27 which would not be good times for the announcement. One way to get a sense of this is to look at the seven phases of the election cycle between now and Nov. 6.

Phase I: June 28-July 8. The Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act will be announced on June 28. Along with the associated fallout and the inevitable media analysis and "spin" period, this decision will no doubt dominate news coverage up to the July Fourth holiday period when voters will be out of pocket and distracted. That holiday distraction will most likely last until July 7. So we have an election phase between now and July 8 in which it is improbable that Mitt Romney would in any way attempt to announce his vice presidential nominee.

Also in this time period is the government's Friday, July 6, release of the June unemployment rate. That will either be good news or bad news for the Romney campaign, and despite the general holiday time period, both the Romney and Obama teams will begin spinning immediately after the announcement at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Our Gallup Daily tracking data show that unemployment is down, based on our unadjusted numbers. How this will translate into the government's adjusted numbers remains to be seen. The spin will be important.

Phase II: July 9-26. This is a period of relative down time, without any major scheduled events -- the lull before the Summer Olympics get underway in London on July 27. This would be one period of time when the Romney campaign could possibly attempt to beat the buzzer, so to speak, and announce the Veep choice, giving his campaign the VP bump of attention earlier than usual.

Phase III: July 27-Aug. 12. Summer Olympics in London. Not everyone cares about the Olympics, of course, and not everyone will be watching. But the coverage will be extensive, and the focus of the news media strong enough to make it doubtful either the Obama or the Romney campaigns will attempt to do momentous things during this time period. In particular, it is very doubtful that the Romney people will decide to time their announcement of their Veep during the Olympics and thus have to share the media spotlight with swimmers, runners, and gymnasts.

The important July unemployment numbers will be released in the middle of the Olympics on Friday, Aug. 3.

Phase IV: Aug. 13-26. This is the period of time when it would appear logical and in tune with history for the Romney campaign to make its announcement. Following the historical schedule, as I mentioned earlier, we would see Romney announcing the week of Aug. 20. But there is absolutely no guarantee that Romney won't decide to announce a little earlier.

Phase V: Aug. 27-Sept. 6. This is the phase in which the Republicans and the Democrats will hold their conventions, with the GOP going first in Tampa Bay, Florida, followed by the Democrats in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the good old days of yesteryear vice presidential nominees were not determined until the convention. Nothing would prevent Romney from waiting until the convention is underway to make his announcement, but that would be a significant departure from recent history.

After Sept. 6, of course, both party's tickets will be determined and campaigning will begin in earnest.

Phase VI: Sept. 7-Oct. 2. This is one of the most intense campaign periods of the election cycle. Both presidential candidates and both vice presidential nominees will be essentially campaigning full speed and non-stop. There will be the inevitable news bumps as gaffes, announcements, and mini-crises percolate up from a huge news media army desperate for content, and the average voter will be hard-pressed to avoid saturation with news coverage of the election.

Phase VII: Oct. 3-Nov. 6. The phase in which the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate (all conducted by the Commission on Presidential Debates) will be held, followed by the final end game leading up to the election on Nov. 6.

All schedules, of course, are made to be disrupted. Unforeseen events may throw some of this out of whack. But the major mileposts of the next 4 months are pretty much set in place.