We posted, and e-mailed out to our “select list,” the prognostication that Obama would announce Evan Bayh as his VP choice, today, Wednesday. Well Wednesday isn’t over yet but it looks like the tea leaves were wrong. The latest is, don’t expect anything until after Obama’s vacation, over after the Olympics.

“It is even unclear whether Mr Obama has yet whittled his choice down to a shortlist. But a straw poll of Obama staff members and Democrats close to the campaign suggests that five or six names recur. Each is deemed capable of helping to neutralise one or more of Mr Obama’s perceived weaknesses: inexperience, lack of national security credentials, the perception that he is aloof and his poor record of winning over blue-collar voters in swing states of the rust belt.

All are evaluated principally on their ability to help Mr Obama win in November, as opposed to the contributions they might make to an administration. In addition, good personal chemistry is ­essential. Mr Bayh is one of the most credible….”

Financial Times, In Ohio

No mention in the article about Wes Clark for whom there’s been a surge of progressive bloggy support, here, here and here.

You can cast your voice here.

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For more on Obama Bayh, they are campaigning in Indiana today. For those of you scratching your heads about Bayh there are quite a few reasons he stands at the lead in the speculation.

On Tuesday, The Indianapolis Star interviewed Mr. Bayh, who said that he hadn’t been asked to join the ticket. Despite speculation surrounding Mr. Obama’s stop in the Hoosier State today, Mr. Bayh told the Star: “”I’m absolutely confident there will be no announcement,” he said. “I guess the best way to put it is, if there’s an announcement, I’d be as surprised as anybody else.”

In contrast to neighboring Illinois, Mr. Obama’s home state, Indiana has voted Republican in every presidential election since the LBJ landslide of 1964. But in this election, it is considered a battleground state. Large numbers of Republicans crossed over to vote Democratic in the May 2 primary, and there is some thought that putting Mr. Bayh on the ticket just might be enough to make this red state and its 11 electoral votes turn blue.

During the primary campaign, Mr. Bayh, 52, not only supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, he was one of her national campaign co-chairmen and once described her as having “a spine of steel.”

Buzzing on the Trail