Today Joe Biden ends his 36-year tenure in the U.S. Senate. While he now probably seems well-suited for the job of "backup President" not many in the progressive blogosphere would have predicted or advocated Biden as VP just a year ago. In fact, if you told me 18 months ago that Barack Obama would be elected President I would have said "good" and been unsurprised. But if you told me that Joe Biden would be Vice President I would have said "Wow!"
In the spring of 2008 there were very few pushing Biden as VP. In order to reinforce Obama's central message of "change" Chris Bowers eliminated as best candidates any who supported the invasion of Iraq including Joe Biden. Others who advocated a "balancing" approach usually failed to mention Biden as well. I heard a lot of advocacy for Powell, Hagel and Jim Webb. Over at Daily Kos Webb trounced Biden in a head-to-head match-up.
In a poll of Open Left readers in June, Biden finished as the 8th "most acceptable" candidate. Bowers in July on Biden as VP: "Yeah, that's real change." For me, it seemed odd that Obama would select as his running mate the guy who's announcement for President is remembered only because he called Obama fresh, clean and articulate.
There were some commenters who advocated Biden, such as Shul who was pushing for Biden in early June:
I can't even properly express how giddy I get just thinking about the possibility of Biden as the VP. I have no doubt that he would get up every single day and just hope that he got the call to go out and hammer McCain as hard as possible.
It seems the general voting public had similar views. MSNBC and Chuck Todd, using an NCAA-style bracket of 32 Democratic candidates for Vice President and an online vote, had Joe Biden emerge as the winner, beating Hillary Clinton in the finals. Did the Obama campaign view this as a national focus group?
With the benefit of hindsight it all makes perfect sense. Biden was one of Obama's mentors in the Senate. Obama's theme was "change" but at the same time he loves being a bridge, a uniter. The Obama team probably knew that an African-American candidate with the name Barack Hussein Obama who opposed the Iraq war from the start was about all the "change" they were going to need and then some. The Scranton-born Biden allowed them to better compete for one demographic that leaned McCain: older white men. And as a "backup President" no one doubted his credentials or ability to do the job if need be.
Here's a theme that is evident in the comments on all the Palin posts today: We should keep our criticism of Palin on issues not on personal characteristics and certainly not on gender.
This seems clearly right at first but then there's this from conservative pundit Ramesh Ponnuru:
Tokenism. Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?
No, I can't say that with a straight face. Even Dan Quayle had 12 years in Congress and nearly 2 as a Senator before his selection. And the first woman selected (24 years ago!), Geraldine Ferraro, had 6 years in Congress. Both Quayle and Ferraro held law degrees.
Imagine if McCain had selected a man in his 40s, Governor of a state with a smallish population who.....oh wait we don't have to imagine this, McCain had someone just like this on his short list and he was rejected as being too much of a lightweight: Tim Pawlenty. Let's compare Pawlenty to Palin and see if gender played a role in this selection.
McCain strategy: win election by exploiting Democratic primary divisions and crass gender politics
My take: This will fail. McCain is ignorantly falling for the same conventional wisdom as so many in the media - but his assumptions are false, false, false.
The CW narrative goes like this: "Obama and Clinton had a nasty primary fight, and lots of white Democratic women ('PUMAs' and their sympathizers) are skittish of Obama as a result. Even if Clinton's speech this week began to reassure these women, they can still be peeled off, by appealing to McCain's incredible Maverickosity so that they ignore their Democratic Party instincts, and by appealing to their desire to elect a woman to executive federal office, an opportunity they were denied by Obama's defeat of Clinton." Sounds scary, right?
Too bad my good friend Mr. Actual Polling Results tells me a different story.
(full analysis, reader poll, and additional McCain strategies and rebuttals below the fold!)
Following the premise of Head of State, McCain chooses Sarah Palin as his running mate, undercutting his own arguments for his own selection, but (possibly) opening new doors for the party's future.
- Has served less than 2 years as Governor of Alaska
- Pro-life
- Helped to pass an ethics reform bill
- Is accused of trying to get her ex-brother in law fired and last month fired the Commissioner of Public Safety. Investigation still underway.
- Has four five children. The oldest deploys to Iraq next month and youngest has Down's Syndrome.
- Big supporter of more drilling
- 2nd place, Miss Alaska Beauty pageant, 1984
There appears to be a battle at her Wiki page as "brother in law" recently disappeared from it although an account of the scandal still exists without those words. This pick would seem to eliminate and indeed could reverse the "not ready for the job" argument the McCain campaign has aimed at Obama. Can they argue Palin is ready to be President of the United States? Your take?
Everyone is talking about how the text message scheme went awry - some cretin in the campaign spilled the beans to CNN's John King - making the media, not the people the first to know that Joe Biden was Obama's VP pick.
OK - but - wasn't it fun? This had almost as much drama as election night. All of us were glued to our computers, our cell phones, our smart phones, etc - waiting for news of the vice presidential pick. Honestly - I don't know if I would have been this excited about the decision if I hadn't signed up to BE excited about it. I was unsure if anyone would care about being the "first to know" - and only circulated the news because I thought it would be worthwhile to get others on the broadcast list. But just the fact of signing up, meant that I was anticipating this news, and increased my interest.
In short - even the news interest was heightened because we were all waiting on the notice - and the official notice was not anti-climactic - it was "official."
One thing the Obama campaign has succeeded in - has been garnering enthusiasm. In this - the texting campaign was a smashing success.
The case for Joe Biden as Barack Obama's running mate is simple: he's got a lot of experience at the federal level, particularly in foreign policy. That will reassure voters who may be concerned about Obama's resume and blunt a major line of attack from John McCain (whose ads have been questioning whether Obama is "ready to lead").
But plenty of people in Washington have served in Congress for 20 or 30 years. What makes Biden better than most of them as a running mate? Media scripts about the "gaffe machine" notwithstanding, I submit that Biden's campaigning ability will be a huge asset to Obama.
I know the stories about Biden putting his foot in his mouth, and I am old enough to remember the Clarence Thomas hearings, when Biden talked too much and didn't put Thomas on the spot enough.
But he is a much better campaigner than people give him credit for. Follow me after the jump for more.
Why?
1. Longer experience in government than McCain
2. He owns 1 house... and it's in Delaware... and he commutes to and from it and doesn't live in Washington DC
3. He is, after 3 decades in the Senate, not a wealthy man, ie: he lives on his Senate Salary and does not turn his political power into $$$
4. Tremendous foreign policy background
5. Relatively enemy free... people on both sides love him
Now some bring up his verbosity... I pulled this off YouTube from one of the earlier Presidential Primary Debates. This says it all:
A friend of a friend overheard a phone conversation between Biden and Obama staffers making plans for Biden, his wife and his son to be in Springfield on Saturday.
So now you can say that you read on a blog that a friend of a friend of a source of a blogger overheard a phone conversation between Biden and Obama staffers making plans for Springfield.
UPDATE: Steve Clemons reports that Biden is the pick.
In the next 24 hours (maybe less) Barack will decide that he's ridden McMansionGate long enough and that it's time to push the button on his cell phone and send a VP announcement text message to millions of Americans.
In the meantime, way too many of us in the Netroots are sitting around refresh-refresh-refreshing our browsers and hoping Mark Helperin or Howard Fineman will drop some crumb of insight that salves our fears and reassures us that it's not Dick Lugar (or, you know, whoever - stay calm, stay calm).
Since even the monkeys at the Washington Post are apt to accidentally type a few lines of Hamlet once in a while, I'm opting to take Howard Kurtz' advice:
Why wait for the actual event? Whip out that keyboard and tell everyone what you think about Obama's VP choice right now.
Consider this an open thread for you to expound, in your infinite wisdom, on your Final Predictions for the the Obama Veepstakes.
No, I didn't get a text message. Just a hunch and this post might look really dumb very shortly. Partly, it's based on the process of elimination. The supposed final 3 were Joe Biden, Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine. Two days ago Biden was asked where he'd be this Saturday and he said "here" (in Delaware) and then followed up with "I'm not the guy." If he was just trying to deflect attention away that was an overly definitive statement. I think he's not the guy. While he'd bring a lot to the ticket he carries some risk, perhaps too much for the careful Obama.
4. Ambinder, one of the reporters we got number 1 above from, says his sources "got skittish" about his report and now won't say whether the Saturday event will be the "unveiling" or whether it could occur earlier.
5. Biden backs off, somewhat, from his earlier denial by saying "I have not spoken to anyone" in the Obama campaign.
Certainly the speculation will end soon but there are a few new nuggets to report tonight. First, a growing sense that Obama will make the announcement within the next 3-4 days:
"Obama cannot announce during the Denver convention and it makes no sense in terms of the news cycle to announce during a weekend,” said one Democrat with no ties to the Obama campaign. “So I would be very surprised if he left it later than Thursday."
Wednesday or Thursday is emerging as the most likely time but not everyone agrees. Jim Geraghty thinks tomorrow makes sense. That would rule out Joe Biden who is in embattled Georgia right now. Biden, though, could certainly make it back in time for a Thursday announcement.
Obama will be in Virginia on Wednesday and, seemingly, Thursday. He has an event scheduled with Mark Warner in Martinsville on Wednesday, an event Tim Kaine says he is too busy to attend. As for Thursday, Kaine is acting coy:
But Washington Post reporter Shailagh Murray reported today that Obama also plans to be in Virginia on Thursday, although the stop has yet to be officially announced by the campaign. Kaine said he doesn't know if he will see Obama on Thursday. Obama could announce his vice-presidential candidate sometime this week.
"Schedules are in flux," Kaine said. "Only the Martinsville event has been announced, but Wednesday I am really tied up wall-to-wall with this cabinet community day."
Meanwhile a cameraman has been tagging along with Kaine filming things for the Obama campaign. Hmmm.
And if you're nonplussed by all of that, here's a serious (sounding) argument for why the ticket will be Obama-Gore. No, really.
Just ten days between now and the start of the Democratic National Convention so time is running out on a VP announcement. Let's take a look at the possibilities for an announcement.
Friday, August 15: Obama still on vacation in Hawaii
Saturday, August 16: Obama in Nevada and California
Sunday, August 17: Maybe but big day for Olympic coverage
Monday & Tuesday, Aug. 18 & 19: Obama in (Update) New Mexico (Mon.) and Florida
Friday, August 22: Low ratings for TV, bad day for major press
Saturday, August 23: Same as above except good for Sunday political coverage
Sunday, August 24: Better day for TV ratings but last day of the Olympics
Monday, August 25: Convention begins.
Ambinder has more details on the Virginia possibilities:
Another potential clue: a Democratic research firm spent part of last week quietly focus grouping the political skills and attributes of Kaine and Gov. Mark Warner last week, two people familiar with the results say......Warner came off well; Kaine did not, with respondents saying that he lacks substantive accomplishments and kisses up too much to Obama.
My money is on Wednesday or Thursday for an announcement but a Sunday announcement is also a possibility. Thursdays and Sundays are traditional big ratings days for TV (and TV News in particular).
STATE BLOGS
Today Joe Biden ends his 36-year tenure in the U.S. Senate. While he now probably seems well-suited for the job of "backup President" not many in the progressive blogosphere would have predicted or advocated Biden as VP just a year ago. In fact, if you told me 18 months ago that Barack Obama would be elected President I would have said "good" and been unsurprised. But if you told me that Joe Biden would be Vice President I would have said "Wow!" 
