Two facts—Sen. John McCain’s weekend politico confab at his ranch in Sedona, Ariz., and Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s blanked-out datebook for Saturday, Sunday and Monday—were enough to whip political bloggers from D.C. to St. Paul to London and back into a vortex of hurried veepstakes handicapping.

The PiPress’s Political Animal, feeding off potent suggestions Friday from the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder and Saturday at The New Republic’s The Stump, noted Sunday for the umpteenth time the blankness of Pawlenty’s public events schedule—with the added edge that this weekend, it hadn’t always been thus. That put bloggers at Daily Kos and elsewhere into gear and The Stump into overdrive Sunday night, with London’s Times Online taking advantage of an early Monday sunrise to crow first that today could be T-Paw’s day.

With the veep vortex that surrounds McCain’s Sedona digs gaining energy hour-by-hour, only an uneventful Monday—featuring Pawlenty’s patented cold-water treatment and capped by a blah McCain appearance on CNN’s “Larry King Live”—will silence the spirited speculation that today’s the day.