Obama prepares to name his deputy

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama is expected finally to name his running mate this week.

The Democratic convention opens in a week’s time in Denver and Mr Obama’s choice remains the main unanswered question as the party gears up for the final election push.

Top contenders for the vice presidential spot are Evan Bayh, a middle-of-the-road Indiana senator with an extensive Democratic pedigree; Virginia governor Tim Kaine, who leads a Republican-leaning state that Mr Obama needs on his side in the election, and long-serving Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee who undertook a weekend trip to Russian-occupied Georgia.

The crisis in Georgia underlined Mr Obama’s need for a running mate with foreign policy gravitas to counter rival John McCain’s four terms in the Senate where he had served as Armed Services chairman and travelled extensively abroad.

Mr McCain has not yet named a running mate either. The Republican convention is from September 1 to 4.

Former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, who supports abortion rights and whose name has been floated by Mr McCain as a possible running mate, said he thought the Republican Party would accept a so-called pro-choice vice presidential candidate.

Mr McCain upset some conservatives last week when he suggested his running mate could support abortion rights.

At the weekend Mr McCain assured evangelical Christians during a forum on faith in California that he had a long record in opposition to abortion and would not change that stand.

The abortion issue drew one of the starkest lines under policy differences raised Saturday night when both Mr McCain and Mr Obama were questioned separately by pastor Rick Warren in his Saddleback Church, a California mega-congregation that claims 23,000 members.

As Mr Obama was leaving the stage and Mr McCain was taking his place, the two men shook hands and embraced briefly. But by yesterday Mr Obama had taken off the gloves and was again battering Mr McCain as little different from unpopular President George Bush.

Mr Obama also laid into McCain’s campaign team for using “the same old folks that brought you George W. Bush” to paint Mr Obama as unpatriotic and weak.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers responded, “John McCain has never questioned Senator Obama’s patriotism, but he clearly does question Senator Obama’s experience and judgment.”

Mr Obama, who has been put on the defensive by a series of attacks on his character, experience and readiness for the presidency, has been responding to the Mr McCain accusations blow for blow.

Mr McCain has sought to make the presidential contest a referendum on Mr Obama, while trying to duck his associations with Mr Bush, who has become deeply unpopular with voters disenchanted the war in Iraq and a badly stumbling economy.