The camera following Tim Kaine is good evidence that Team Obama is leaning toward a bad pick. Kaine just isn’t ready for prime time. Exhibit A: his embarrassing response last week to fairly transparent Russian disinformation. Chuck Todd speculated yesterday that Putin knocked Kaine off the list. Besides, I’ve talked to Virginia Republicans who are so demoralized that they privately think Obama has their state in the bag already.

It seems to me that the smart pick for Obama would be Gen. Anthony Zinni. You don’t get more foreign policy gravitas in the Democratic universe; Zinni was one of the few people who was against invading Iraq and in favor of the surge. Naturally, he’s barely on the radar in the latest round of speculation. But just in case, I called Zinni’s publicist this afternoon to check on his appearance schedule; he was in transit but said he’d get back to me by email. UPDATE: Zinni has “a brutal travel schedule well into the future, and any speaking appearances are all closed to the public,” says the publicist. I assume that means he’s not expecting to be on the campaign trail.