On VP search, their lips are sealed

For all the lengths Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have gone to in keeping their hunt for a vice president under wraps, their deliberations are in some ways being conducted in plain sight.

As the process unfolds, strategic imperatives for the candidates have become clearer.

Members of both parties said Obama, 46, should not be looking to make any dramatic or risky moves that would divert attention from his role as the would-be head of a new generation of leadership seeking to make a clean break from the politics of the past.

By contrast, McCain, 71, has good reason to look for a choice that would change the landscape, a point that some of his own advisers are making.

"Republicans need to do something to shake things up," said Steve Elmendorf, who played a significant role in the vice-presidential search as a deputy campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004. "Barack is in a different situation, and he needs somebody who can be safe and steady."

For Obama, there is no shortage of what Democrats describe as do-no-harm people he can pick: Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana; Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware; former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia; or Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

Democrats said they thought it was less likely now than it was a month ago that Obama would choose Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York as his running mate.

Should McCain decide he wants to shake things up, his options would appear to be limited. Many of the biggest brand names in the Republican Party — such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida — are politically tarnished or have signaled they have no interest.

By contrast, there is no shortage of presumably solid but more stolid possibilities: McCain's former rival for the nomination, Mitt Romney, who might help him in Michigan, where he was born; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who could help him in Minnesota, which Republicans would like to turn into a swing state; or Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who helped McCain win the primary.

But if the campaigns have their way, the real lists are unlikely to leak. "I've been instructed on the penalty of death that I give no clues as to where the process is," said Mark Salter, McCain's close friend and adviser.