By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 11, 2004; Page C01

It is the question that John Edwards is asked in virtually every television interview, the question that suggests he's running out of gas, the question that drives his staff up the wall:

Would you agree to be John Kerry's running mate?

"I'll be honest, it's annoying," says Jennifer Palmieri, the North Carolina senator's spokeswoman. "It's like a pesky fly. The question has been more persistent in the last few weeks, but it's always been a question that's been around."

The media ritual known as the veepstakes is now in first gear, and will only rev higher after the southerner's losses to the Yankee front-runner in yesterday's Virginia and Tennessee primaries.

When Newsweek ran a cover story on Kerry two weeks ago, says correspondent Howard Fineman, editors had toyed with the idea of picturing Kerry with Edwards and the headline: "Ticket?" "When I broached that possibility with Edwards's people, they went nuts," Fineman says.

Is the question a not-so-subtle slam against the freshman senator? "Kerry's such an overwhelming, prohibitive front-runner, and has such a virtual lock on the thing, that it's nothing personal with Edwards," Fineman says. "People's attitude is, what else could he be running for?"

Little surprise, then, that Larry King asked Edwards last night: "Have you absolutely ruled out taking second place?" When the candidate replied that he is "completely focused on becoming president of the United States," the assembled commentators dismissed it as a weak denial.

Considering that the Democratic presidential nominee probably won't announce his number-two man until the eve of the Boston convention in July, the nation could be in for a long, tough slog of speculation about every conceivable candidate. And, if history is any guide, much of it will be wrong.

On CNN yesterday, anchor Daryn Kagan asked Time's Jay Carney: "Is it possible that John Edwards, Mr. Nice Guy with that don't-say-a-bad-word campaign, is actually campaigning for the number-two position?" Kagan also asked about the chances of Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and, yes, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"It's ridiculously early, in that Kerry won't make up his mind for months and months, but it's certainly a fun parlor game," Carney says afterward. "It's pure Jell-O speculation." Thanks to Edwards's positive style, says Carney, "you think if he's not going after Kerry, he wants to be vice president."

But part of the ritual is that an active presidential candidate like Edwards cannot possibly say he'd consider being someone else's ticket-balancing partner, even if he lies awake nights dreaming about it. He might as well start waving a giant white flag. Everyone knows this, but the question gets asked anyway.

NBC's Matt Lauer: "There is a growing chorus, Senator, talking about Kerry-Edwards in the fall as a ticket . . . "

Fox's Brit Hume: "Is he the kind of person you could be on a ticket with?"

CNN's Soledad O'Brien: "Any aspirations? In the past you've said no to being vice president."

ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "Are there any circumstances under which you'd accept the vice presidential nomination of your party?"

Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times, who posed the question last week on CBS's "Face the Nation," says it's perfectly fair to ask Edwards, who has prevailed in this campaign only in his native South Carolina. "For him to be taken seriously, he's going to have to win his second primary somewhere," McManus says. But, he admits, "it's the equivalent of asking a candidate, 'When are you going to drop out?' "

McManus says host Bob Schieffer tried to discourage the query on the grounds that Edwards's answer was predictable. The problem, says McManus, is that "no one believes the no."

"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace, who didn't ask Edwards the question Sunday, says it's become a "silly" exercise: "I thought I've got 12 minutes with this guy and I've got better uses for my time than to ask a question I know he's not going to answer." Wallace notes, however, that he put the question to Edwards in December.

Time magazine got into the act with a poll in which 71 percent of Democrats bless the idea of a Kerry-Edwards lineup. And even spokeswoman Palmieri sees in the VP obsession a backhanded compliment that "Edwards is appealing and has something to offer."

Beyond the repetitive questions, the vice presidency has become a prism through which everything Edwards does is viewed. Why is his campaign so relentlessly positive? Why no attack ads? Is it because he doesn't want to anger Kerry?

Howard Dean, for his part, didn't rule out running with Kerry when asked recently, but said he'd advise the Massachusetts senator not to pick another New Englander.

The veepstakes is a caldron of rumor, hype and guesswork. In 1992, various pundits said Bill Clinton would pick Bob Kerrey, Lee Hamilton or Bob Graham. Four years later, almost no one expected Bob Dole to pick his longtime rival Jack Kemp. In 2000, there was a flood of media predictions that George W. Bush would pick either Tom Ridge or Frank Keating, with a last-minute flurry around John McCain. Almost no one saw Dick Cheney, who supervised the vice presidential selection, getting the nod.

Even incumbency is no protection. A Newsweek piece this week on whether Cheney is a drag on the ticket has renewed media chatter about whether he'll be replaced -- just as stories kept surfacing in 1992 that Bush's father might dump Dan Quayle.

The subtext to all the will-Kerry-pick-Edwards talk is that the Democratic race is over, finito, kaput. A campaign that the media eagerly built up for a year lasted just three weeks after Iowans went to their caucuses, at least according to journalists' current focus on a Kerry-Bush showdown.

"I do sense a desire to move on to the main event," McManus says.

Are journalists really calling it quits in early February? "There's a conflict between wanting to go home to do your laundry and getting more airtime," Fineman explains. "Everyone has mixed emotions."