Obama – Biden ’08!
The Biden pick is excellent in many ways. In these situations, I always have two conflicting parts of my personality. One is the voter who wants whomever will be best for the job. The other is the strategist who, having already decided I prefer Obama to McCain, wants whomever will maximize Obama’s chances.
The voter side of me is thrilled. I’ve liked Biden for years because he’s clearly smart and knows his stuff. He’s known and respected in foreign capitals for a reason. In addition to having plenty of legislative experience, he was also a constitutional law professor like Obama, and is clearly willing to say what he thinks. Really, he’s the kind of guy who should have a lot more national name-recognition than he does. Americans are, in general, pitifully bad at identifying members of their own legislature, and Biden ought to be as easily identified as anyone. If name recognition really worked the way it should, Biden probably would have had a very good shot at getting the Democratic nomination himself.
The strategist side is also happy, but not totally without reservation. My concern is largely what I’ve said before — that I think picking someone whose credentials are largely in foreign policy does more to highlight and tacitly admit to a shortcoming on the issue than it does to address it. Nevertheless, it clearly does something to address it. There is also the strategic concern of his earlier comments about Obama not being ready, but I think this is, despite being a clear downside, not going to be horrible.
Biden does have a lot of other strategic considerations going for him. He has blue-collar appeal, though I don’t think he has so much blue collar support at this point. I’m sure within Delaware he does, and he has a lot of national potential, but I don’t think he has the name recognition to have much support already. (I think I caught on CNN that he’s the least wealthy senator?) Also, he’s clearly very good at the nonabrasive attack. He’s so straightforward with all his thoughts that his attacks seem like he’s just more candid about his thoughts than others are. I think he’s one of few that can add the aggressiveness the Obama campaign needs without undermining the positive image. His son is going to Iraq, which will be a mild background help. He has Pennsylvania roots, though I doubt that’s a huge thing (I think that Pennsylvania is actually not that big a concern — if Obama is losing there, he’s already lost). Overall, Biden’s a politically solid pick, and I’m not sure anyone else would clearly be better, but from this perspective he’s not as unambiguously good as my voter side would rate him.
This is a good choice and a strong ticket. Any Democrat should be happy. Now I get to go back to being conflicted about whether I want to see a good Republican VP who I wouldn’t mind in office versus seeing a stupid choice (i.e. Romney) that’d maximize Obama’s chances.
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I want to like Biden, but his voting records stinks from where I sit. Voted for the war, DMCA, Patriot Act; and he’s never seen a pro-drug-war bill he didn’t like. Hopefully he’ll help Obama win and then sit on the sidelines for the duration.