It seems that every pundit on the planet has decided that Bayh, Biden or Kaine will be Obama's VP. Hillary Clinton's name is still bandied about a bit but that may just be wishful thinking. On the Republican side it seems like everyone has decided that either Pawlenty or Romney will be on the ticket. Let's recall the past few elections and see if they can give us some insight.
In 2004 Kerry picked Edward early (20 days before the convention). In 2000 Bush picked Cheney as an almost complete surprise. Cheney was the head of Bush's VP selection committee. Only in the final days before Bush's announcement did he become accepted as a potential pick. And Gore picked Lieberman. While Lieberman was mentioned in the conversation it seems that the last minute speculation focused around six including Lieberman. (http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/06/gore.bush.01/index.html) And Lieberman probably had the lowest odds even the day before the pick.
I want to argue that there is at best a 50-50 chance that one of Biden, Bayh, Kaine, Pawlenty or Romney will be picked. But after looking closer I am not sure. I think if Romney was going to be McCain's VP he would have picked him sooner - as Kerry did with Edwards - to take more advantage of the name recognition. Also, I think we should look at people surrounded by less speculation. In the past the high level of speculation seems to have been either a smoke screen or some sort of test. For the same reason that Kerry wasn't picked in 2000 I think Pawlenty, Kaine and Bayh won't be picked this year. Lots of early speculation went nowhere because either the candidate doesn't like him or he isn't polling well.
So foremost I think we should calm down. This is not the end for progressives. Obama may still pick someone like Sherrod Brown. McCain may still pick an unknown Cheney type from a dark red state that will be useless if not harmful in the election. There is still hope we won't have an Obama/Bayh - McCain/Romney election.
What does everyone else think? Is recent history not as informative here as I would like it to be?