Renamed said:
1. She officially became a candidate on July 21st. The Obama's officially endorsed her on July 26th. 5 days is quick in politics. That said, the videotaped phone call showed her wearing a tan suit. The same suit she was seen wearing 2 days before in several interviews. That means a couple of things. A, they endorsed her far earlier than the date of the publicly released campaign video. B, They slight delay was more about planning the endorsement video, staging the right suit (the parallel to Obama getting absolute hell for wearing a tan suit in 2014 is notable), filming the video between events, editing the video, scheduling when to publish. C, The latter was important so it doesn't over take any other endorsement/campaign news.
2. She gained the necessary delegates the day after announcing her candidacy. That locked it in right then. Any news agency saying it could potentially still be someone else after July 22nd, either wasn't familiar with the nominating process or was just stirring stuff up for clicks. She needed 1975 delegates and by 10:15 pm that night, she already had 2,208.
3 and 4. Michelle has no actual political background. An announcement by Michelle Obama submitting her candidacy would have been met with a small segment of excitement that would have been overwhelmed by confusion, frustration and even anger. The same could be said of Oprah Winfrey. And for the record, I have never heard any discussion for either as candidates EXCEPT from right wing media. Jesse Waters and Sean Hannity have both said their names as potential candidates within the past few years.
4. Guesses are absolutely understandable and even expected but they are typically suggested based on some merits. At least by serious news agencies and commentators. You will always see protest votes where someone writes in a celebrity for president but you'll never see them mentioned as a serious candidate for president (trying not to knock Trump here).
5. I haven't had time yet to dig deep into the potential VP picks yet. I've mentioned a couple of names and that I'd be happy with just about any of the names that came up on the short list. Surface level, I'm ok with her selection and I don't expect my initial reactive feeling to change much later on. The selection feels vetted, scrutinized, made only after careful consideration.
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