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It is easy to see why McCain was drawn to her; their political resumes have much in common. The 44-year-old Republican has sold herself as a political maverick willing to buck her party over principle, an ethics reformer who quit a lucrative job rather than play ball with the old boys' network and a pragmatist who will reach across the aisle to get her agenda enacted. Like McCain, she has at times been a black sheep in her own party. . . . According to WaPo, McCain was taken by Palin from the first time he heard her speak in February at a Governor's Association meeting. He saw her as a "kindered spirit" from the start. As Newsweek calls her in a surprisingly flattering article, she is McCain's Mrs. Right. Stop prying into other people's vaginas, even if you happen to oppose them politically. What is wrong with you people?" The insane obsession with Sarah Palin's pregnancy rages on. This will all go down in the annals of feminism, people. So think before you write. Andrew? [AND.] And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Protein Wisdom has an entire round-up of all the ad hominem attacks on Palin. They run the gambit from incredible snobbery to charges of witchcraft and labels of trailer trash. And there is the half true but completely false rumor that Palin is a convicted felon. Ben Smith has the whole story on that one. At any rate, the floodgates have been opened. The far left are powerless. And if the other 90% of America – those not in the MSM, not members of Kos, or not drawing Soros paychecks – end up liking this incredible woman, then the blowback will be severe. Does the fact that he chose as his Vice President someone who has less experience than you take that weapon out of his arsenal? Wow. Think of just how that question is going to play when it is asked everyday between now and November. Pushing the inexperience meme against Palin in relation to Obama is a minefield of titanic proportions for the left. As McCain has noted, Palin has more executive experience than Obama and Biden together, and she was serving in elected office when Obama was "still a community organizer." But far more importantly, that is an apples to oranges comparison. The real comparison is McCain to Obama. Obama has gotten this far on the argument that experience does not matter. If all of a sudden it does matter, Obama’s huge problems just grew exponentially.
Naming Gov. Sarah Palin as the V.P. pick was a masterstroke by McCain. It has energized his base and opened up a multi-level trap for the left that they are powerless to avoid. Her resume is sufficiently thin that the left cannot resist attacking her on grounds of experience – drawing a very unfavorable comparison to Obama who has based his candidacy on the propositoin that experience doesn't matter. Two, character assassination and misogynistic attacks just are not going to work against this woman. In fact, it will very likely backfire. But precisely because of who she is and what she represents, the left is just powerless to stop themselves from going down that road.
A panic choice for VP? That is the first knock on Gov. Palin from the left in an effort to delegitimize her. But all indications are that Gov. Palin was anything but a panic pick. For one, at this point in the game, McCain is far ahead in the polls of where he could expect to be in historical terms. There was no reason to panic. But beyond that, it is coming out now that McCain had Gov. Palin at the top of his list for months because of her character and background. As the LA Times said today
And given her conservative credentials, she has energized the base like no other pick could have. Gov. Palin hits all the social conservative hot buttons, including that she is herself an evangelical. Add to that her strengths on the Second Amendment, her fiscal conservativism and her incredible political bravery in standing on ethics issues, and Evangelicals along with the rest of the base couldn't be more excited. Even Hillbilly Whitetrash, as committed against McCain as any conservative could be, is now going to be pulling the lever for the PALIN-McCain ticket. Donations to the McCain campaign have skyrocketed. McCain and Palin just drew record crowds – Obama numbers – to their campaign stop in Missouri.
The meme that Governor Palin was a panic pick – or even that she was an affirmative action pick – just cannot survive on the above facts. Clearly, her plumbing is secondary to her appeal to the base, regardless that said plumbing happens to likely be an asset in the current race.
And that, really, is why the far left just will not be able to help themselves in going after Gov. Palin with all sorts of ad hominem attacks doomed to backfire. Gov. Palin is a woman. As such, she is a victim and is expected to embrace her victimhood. But Gov. Palin doesn’t fit that bill. I dare say you are not likely to see tears coming from her during a campaign stop. You’ve seen the left attack others like her who have refused to embrace their victimhood. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, Bill Cosby, Colin Powell, Thomas Sowell – all are classed as victims by the left but all failed to embrace their victimhood. Thus all have regularly been savaged by the far left. The far left can’t help themselves on this. (Update: The Daily Standard perfectly captures this is in the NOW reaction to Gov. Palin. She may be a woman, but she is not acting the victim and thus is to be fought against and denigrated)
Outside of an election, it does not matter so much. But in this case, the nation is watching and waiting to pull the levers in a referendum in November.
Thus you have most on the left doing all they can to denigrate Palin. Andrea Mitchell, appearing on NBC the other day, called Palin "Annie Oakley" and said that she would only appeal to the undeducated among Hillary voters. Then there are the attacks on Palin for her competence as a mother. This bizarre argument is predicated on her decision to fly back to Alaska to give birth after her water broke.
The Kos kids have been pushing the rather incredible rumor that Gov. Palin's son Trig, her four month old child with Downs Syndrome, is actually her grandson. That one goes beyond bizarre. Rightwing Nuthouse addresses this one in some detail, and Ann Althouse comments today
But that is just one level of the trap posed by Gov. Palin. While I would argue her experience is sufficient to be named Vice President, there is room there for argument. But there is a rule of thumb – you don’t attack an enemy - even a potentially weak one - when you’re weaker than they are. That just has not dawned on the left yet. They see weakness and they are going to go for the kill – not realizing that crossing that field is as suicidal as Pickett’s charge.
But charge they will – and thus the argument that Gov. Palin is too inexperienced to be VP is now front and center. You have to love all the irony in this question put to Obama in a 60 Minutes interview Sunday:
The one thing I’ve been moderately concerned about is the ethics complaint made against Gov. Palin by a man she fired for cause, former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. I could not see McCain tapping Palin for V.P. without thoroughly investigating this and satisfying himself that this a charge with no validity. That said, I've been waiting for someone to explain the whole story. Joshuapundit has performed that service for us. You can read about it as his site, but it appears that, while there are a lot of moving parts to the story, none of them splash mud onto Gov. Palin.
All of this said, Gov. Palin is going to sink or swim over the next two months. She has her work cut out for her because, given that few really know her and given the short decision time, she has precious little room for mistakes. She needs to live up to her resume and she needs to show enough grasp of the issues to make people comfortable with her. That is very much borne out by a Frank Lunze focus group you can find at Hot Air. Probably never before has so much ridden on two months of campaigning and one VP debate.
But it does now. For the next two months, its going to be pure Palindemonium.
Showing posts with label VP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VP. Show all posts
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Palindemonium
Friday, August 29, 2008
Gov. Palin and Reactions
Part I: John McCain's Introduction of Gov. Palin in Ohio
Part II - McCain introduction (Cont'd.)
Part III - Gov. Sarah Palin's Speech
Part IV - Gov. Sarah Palin's Speech (Cont'd.)
Rush is a happy camper:
- It’s an inspired choice… this is absolutely fabulous.”
- “We’re the ones with the babe on the ticket.”
- “And this is a real Republican woman. This woman hunts moose. She is a total maverick.”
The Volokh Conspiracy visited a pro-Hillary web-site and found them ecstatic in page after page of comments reacting to the news of Sarah Palin being nominated.
Jonah Goldberg gives his reaction.
From Vinny in the comments:
- Its Sarah and John against the Obaminator
The editors at NRO are quite pleased with this pick.
And Mark Levin has also jumped wholly on the McCain ship on the basis of the Palin selection.
From Soccer Dad, on Palin's blue collar husband.
A bevy of links at Instapundit.
And several posts and comments at Ann Althouse. I thought this comment was particularly interesting:
10:21: More from the comments. This is from Peter V. Bella:
Man, the leftist whackos and nutroots are going to come out of the woodwork like cockroaches. Pallin wears fur, she hunts and eats moose burgers, she is a life long member of the NRA, and the worst, the absolute worst crime -- her husband is a fisherman who works in the oil fields in the off-season. Yep, a regular working stiff. The kind of guy they hate and are jealous of. Not a lawyer or a fuzzy headed policy wonk; not a professor of basket weaving or Mayan Mysticism, not someone who lives off the teat of government grants; but a real, solid, hard core, working man. A guy who gets his hands dirty every day. The average Joe American.
What makes her even more odious is she actually worked with her husband on the fishing boats. She really, actually worked for a living. The Gospel chorus is lining up to rage and rant; “my God, how can he pick someone like that? Working people, why, they, they, they, know too much about real life!”
PETA, the anti-gun nuts, ELF, KOS, MYDD, Huffingglue and probably a host of others will be gnashing their teeth, pounding their drums, shaking their chubby little fists and green tamborines, and going into full, foaming at the mouth, rabid attack mode. They are going to have heartastrokes over this.
On The Left:
At Time - already raising the spectre of Dan Quayle.
Susan Estrich launches a viscious attack on Palin as the anti-Hillary. I like her more already. One obvious differnce. Palin is self-made. She made it to governor on her own, not by riding the coattails of the man she married.
Via HotAir, from CNN - Hey, won't Palin be neglecting her Downs Syndrome baby?
Not all on the left are frothing. Talkleft has some sound advice for the left. I wonder what the odds are it will be heeded?
The Maverick Strikes - Its Sarah Palin
Republican presumptive presidential nominee John McCain has chosen first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, according to a senior McCain adviser. Read the entire article. I am amazed that the Obama camp is denigrating her already. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s vice presidential pick and the first female governor of Alaska, is seen as a rising star within the Republican Party. My hats off to McCain. I was hoping he would make a bold pick. This certainly foots the bill. I was going to write an analysis of this, but I think Ed Morissey has done a better job than I can do on this one. This is his take on it all at Hot Air: . . . Palin has served less than two years as Governor of Alaska, which tends to eat into the experience message on which McCain has relied thus far. At 44, she’s younger than Barack Obama by three years. She has served as a mayor and as the Ethics Commissioner on the state board regulating oil and natural gas, for a total of eight years political experience before her election as governor. That’s also less than Obama has, with seven years in the Illinois legislature and three in the US Senate.
Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin is the Republican VP Pick. This is a brilliant pick. She is a strong conservative and a true Washington outside. She has had private sector business experience, she has executive experience, she is pro-life, she is a mother of five, including a soldier and Down's Syndrome child, she is a strong proponent of drilling in ANWR, and she is a maverick herself by all accounts, having taken on the corrupt Republican Party in Alaska and won. This just threw a wild card into the race.
This from the Washington Post:
Palin, 44, will be the first woman nominated to the ticket by the Republican Party, and is a surprise choice after McCain considered more experienced politicians, including several of his former rivals for the GOP nomination. Palin was elected in 2006, and before that was mayor of tiny Wasilla, population 6,715.
She is a favorite of conservatives, who say she brings a reform-minded agenda and is what one called a "feminist for life.'' She is the mother of five; her youngest child, born in April, has Down's syndrome.
Palin had been before mentioned as a dark-horse candidate for the pick, but speculation in recent days had focused on McCain's primary rival Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and on Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. The choice--to be announced at a noon rally here--was kept secret by the McCain campaign despite a frenzy of speculation from the 24/7 world of cable news and political blogs.
. . . McCain's communications director, Jill Hazelbaker, playfully declined to provide any confirmation Friday morning. Speaking on CBS' "Early Show," she provided only a vague sense of the motivation that has driven McCain's decision. "John McCain is going to make the choice from his heart," she said.
"He's going to choose someone who can be a partner in governing. He's going to choose someone who brings character and principle to the table and who shares his priorities. And I'm confident that he's going to make a great pick."
. . . Karl Rove, President Bush's former top political advisers, said on Fox News that picking Palin would "shake up" the traditional coalitions in both parties. He called Palin a "breath of fresh air," and said picking her would be an indication that McCain is hoping to make a direct appeal to women voters, especially those who voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton, not Sen. Barack Obama, during the Democratic primary.
"It would be a clear sign by the McCain campaign that they would be making a bid" for women voters, Rove said. "In the last 24 hours, we've seen both campaigns refocus themselves in a powerful way on the Hillary Clinton supporters."
One GOP source who said McCain had chosen Palin call it a "stunning pick" and said he was still trying to get his arms around it. The source, who did not want to be named since McCain has not commented publicly, said conservatives will be pleased since she is an anti-abortion Republican.
But he acknowledged that Palin is "not really that well known."
Aides to Obama said they are salivating at the prospect of a Palin pick, readying talking points to question McCain's choice. With 18 months in office, little foreign policy experience -- or experience of any kind -- Palin would be, in the words of one senior Obama adviser, "a gift."
Democratic officials expressed surprise about Palin but predicted that she will make it more difficult for McCain to use one of his central attacks on Obama: that the first-term senator lacks the experience the White House requires.
"He cannot say any more that Barack Obama doesn't have the experience to be commander in chief when he chooses a woman whose signature achievement two years ago was that they won an award from the National Arbor Day Foundation," a Democratic operative said.
Democrats began quickly scouring Palin's past. They pointed out that she had once raised the sales tax to support construction of a recreation center in her city. And they noted that Palin has been accused of improperly using her office to have her ex-brother-in-law fired from his state trooper's job.
"She's under investigation right now," the Democrat said.
Geraldine Ferrarro was the only other woman ever chosen to run on a major ticket. She is on Fox News at the moment saying that this is a big reach across the aisle to the PUMA folks that Obama just spent the last week trying to bring back into the fold.
And there is this bio from Fox:
She became the youngest person to assume the top office of the 49th State in 2006. Her anti-abortion stance is certain to appeal to evangelicals, while her views on the threats of climate change mirror those of Senator McCain.
“Palin is becoming a star in the conservative movement, a fiscal conservative in a state that is looking like a boondoggle for pork barrel spending,” Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway has said. “She’s young, vibrant, fresh and now, and a new mother of five. She should be in the top tier. If the Republican Party wants to wrestle itself free from the perception that it is royalist and not open to putting new talent on the bench, this would be the real opportunity.”
Palin’s presence adds youth to a McCain ticket, but it is her gender that could help sway women, especially the “security moms” who helped President Bush win re-election in 2004, to vote GOP.
Born in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Feb. 11, 1964, Palin moved with her family at the age of three months to Wasilla, Alaska, though she returned to her birth state to attend the University of Idaho, where she studied journalism and graduated in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree.
Palin is the mother of five children — Bristol, Willow, Piper, Track and Trig, who was born in April with Down syndrome.
She grew up in Wasilla, just outside of Anchorage, played on Wasilla’s state champion girls’ basketball team in 1982, wore the crown of Miss Wasilla in 1984 and competed in the Miss Alaska contest.
She began her professional career as a television sports reporter, but after she married her husband, Todd, she helped run his family’s commercial fishing business. Other professional endeavors included the ownership of a snow machine, watercraft and all-terrain-vehicle business.
She ran for Wasilla City Council in 1992, winning her seat by opposing tax increases. Four years later, she was elected mayor of Wasilla at age 32 by knocking off a three-term incumbent.
At the end of her second term, party leaders encouraged her to enter the 2002 race for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. Against veteran legislators with far more experience, Palin finished second by fewer than 2,000 votes, making a name for herself in statewide politics.
Palin had exceptionally high approval ratings through mid-2007 and received high marks for her accessibility, a change from Frank Murkowski’s administration.
However, the nature of the experience couldn’t be more different. Palin spent her entire political career crusading against the political machine that rules Alaska — which exists in her own Republican party. She blew the whistle on the state GOP chair, who had abused his power on the same commission to conduct party business. Obama, in contrast, talked a great deal about reform in Chicago but never challenged the party machine, preferring to take an easy ride as a protegé of Richard Daley instead.
Palin has no formal foreign-policy experience, which puts her at a disadvantage to Joe Biden. However, in nineteen months as governor, she certainly has had more practical experience in diplomacy than Biden or Obama have ever seen. She runs the only American state bordered only by two foreign countries, one of which has increasingly grown hostile to the US again, Russia.
And let’s face it — Team Obama can hardly attack Palin for a lack of foreign-policy experience. Obama has none at all, and neither Obama or Biden have any executive experience. Palin has almost over seven years of executive experience.
Politically, this puts Obama in a very tough position. The Democrats had prepared to launch a full assault on McCain’s running mate, but having Palin as a target creates one large headache. If they go after her like they went after Hillary Clinton, Obama risks alienating women all over again. If they don’t go after her like they went after Hillary, he risks alienating Hillary supporters, who will see this as a sign of disrespect for Hillary.
For McCain, this gives him a boost like no other in several different ways. First, the media will eat this up. That effectively buries Obama’s acceptance speech and steals the oxygen he needs for a long-term convention bump. A Romney or Pawlenty pick would not have accomplished that.
Second, Palin will re-energize the base. She’s not just a pro-life advocate, she’s lived the issue herself. That will attract the elements of the GOP that had held McCain at a distance since the primaries and provide positive motivation for Republicans, rather than just rely on anti-Democrat sentiment to get them to the polls.
Third, and I think maybe most importantly, Palin addresses the energy issue better and more attuned to the American electorate than maybe any of the other three principals in this election. Even beyond her efforts to reform the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, she has demonstrated her independence from so-called “Big Oil” while promoting domestic production. She brings instant credibility to the ticket on energy policy, and reminds independents and centrists that the Obama-Biden ticket offers nothing but the same excuses we’ve heard for 30 years.
Finally, based on all of the above, McCain can remind voters who has the real record of reform. Obama talks a lot about it but has no actual record of reform, and for a running mate, he chose a 35-year Washington insider with all sorts of connections to lobbyists and pork. McCain has fought pork, taken real political risks to fight undue influence of lobbyists, and he picked an outsider who took on her own party — and won.
This is change you can believe in, and not change that amounts to all talk. McCain changed the trajectory of the race today by stealing Obama’s strength and turning it against him. Obama provided that opening by picking Biden as his running mate, and McCain was smart enough to take advantage of the opening.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Reactions 'Round The Right To Biden
I think it is an outright terrible decision on Obama's part to pick Biden. Yes, he helps balance Obama's inexperience on foreign policy, but he also reminds people of it. Yes, Biden could conceivably be effective as an attack dog. But Biden is such a gasbag he makes the Hindenburg look like a sack of rocks. Obama doesn't need to increase his lip-flapping quotient. Biden is a gaffe machine and Obama is bad explaining faults, and his VP's faults will inevitably become Obama's in the Fall campaign. Biden will be fantastic at convincing people already eager to vote for Obama to vote for Obama. His ability to convince the undecided is much, much weaker, in my opinion. There's more than a small risk that Biden will reinforce the sense that this ticket is all about hearing itself talk. I wouldn't be surprised, two months from now, that we'll hear a lot of talk about how Obama's mistake in picking Biden can be explained by Obama's inherent weakness, and love, for talky-talk-talk Read the entire post. The biggest problem with Biden from Obama's standpoint is Biden's ego and his tendency to shoot himself in the foot with his own mouth. The Chosen One not only would have difficulty sharing the stage with Biden, but there are a whole slew of statements out of Biden's own mouth deriding Obama for his lack of resume and praising John McCain! If Biden gets the nod, we can look forward to some absolutely side splitting ads from the GOP campaign. And no sooner is that said than the McCain camp issues its first ad, brought to you via Jammie Wearing Fools: Mickey Kaus reminds us of this prize Biden moment from 1987 when he made five boasts about his academic record. And four of them were totally, disprovably false. He then went on to say that he ''went to law school on a full academic scholarship - the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship,'' Mr. Biden said. He also said that he ''ended up in the top half'' of his class and won a prize in an international moot court competition. In college, Mr. Biden said in the appearance, he was ''the outstanding student in the political science department'' and ''graduated with three degrees from college.' 'The moot court thing seems to check out. The other boasts - not so much. He was 76th in a class of 85. But the real kicker is what he told the guy who seemed to be asking a rather mild question: The tape, which was made available by C-SPAN in response to a reporter's request, showed a testy exchange in response to a question about his law school record from a man identified only as ''Frank.'' Mr. Biden looked at his questioner and said: ''I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do.' 'So now the Democrats have two guys who think they're smarter than other people and who like to talk a lot. They're the all arrogant, all talk ticket. Perhaps the McCain people can find that C-Span tape and run clips of the friendly Joe Biden telling some guy he meets in a campaign event that he thinks he has a much higher I.Q. That will go over big. "I exaggerate when I'm angry," Mr. Biden said, "but I've never gone around telling people things that aren't true about me." Well, except for the four statements that weren't true. Sure, McCain graduated near the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, but at least he has never pretended otherwise. At the Tuesday-morning meeting with committee staffers, Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: "I'm groping here." Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we're not bent on its destruction. "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran," Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face. Besides the ludicrousness of the idea of giving a couple of hundred million to Iran, who had never shown any inclination that they were favorably disposed to the United States, doesn't this vaunted expert on foreign policy realize that the Iranians are not Arabs and so giving them money out of the blue wouldn't do anything to make Arabs feel better about the U.S.? Read the entire post.
The above photo comes from Confederate Yankee, under the heading "Oh, The Gaffes We'll Have . . ."
And from Ankle Biting Pundit, commenting on the fact that the media knew of Obama's pick of Biden as VP prior to the text messages going out: "Well, Obama did say his supporters would be the first to know."
I gave my assessment of Joe Biden as Obama's running mate in the post below - that Biden is a world class ego tied to a questionable intellect and a mouth in perpetual motion. I do not see this selection as helping Obama. Looking around some of the right side of the web, I see that it is an assessment mirrored, in some cases precisely, by others.
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You can get a feel for Biden's intellectual weakness at this post I did on his assessment of Iraq in April, 2007 and his plan to forgo the surge and divide Iraq into three separate and independent provinces. It was a very poorly thought out plan that would have handed the Shia south to Iran on a platter and almost assured a civil war.
Jonah Goldberg, writing at the NRO, articulates an assessment of Biden dead on point with my own:
Joshua Pundit mirrors Mr. Goldberg with his short assessment:
Heh.
Betsy's Page provides a long and thorough post on Biden that highlights Biden's outsized ego, his love of endless pontificating, and his slight regard for truth or accuracy. Here is one interesting snippet:
Joe's excuse for all the prevarications in that exchange?
Michael Crowley at the New Republic had this profile of Biden back in 2001. Biden was convinced that the man and the moment had arrived. He had the expertise from the Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee that would be necessary after 9/11. He had been warning about terrorism back in the 1990s after the Oklahoma bombing. All that is good. And sure, as Crowley points out, the guy goes on and on and on when he talks, but people like him. Then there is this one anecdote.
The staffers sit in silence. Finally somebody ventures a response: "I think they'd send it back." Then another aide speaks up delicately: "The thing I would worry about is that it would almost look like a publicity stunt." Still another reminds Biden that an Iranian delegation is in Moscow that very day to discuss a $300 million arms deal with Vladimir Putin that the United States has strongly condemned. But Joe Biden is barely listening anymore. He's already moved on to something else.
With this pick, a fun and fascinating political campaign just got a whole lot more fun. The big story for the next few two and a half months will be whether or not Biden can keep from making any more fun gaffes? Perhaps, he does have that sort of will power, but he's never demonstrated it yet?
And lastly, as Redstate succinctly sums up Biden and what he brings to the table, "Glib and verbose does not equal intelligent or insightful."
Biden Is The One's VP Pick
. . . [H]ow can [Biden] possibly help Obama? Throughout his long career, Biden has been anything but a powerhouse. His several Presidential runs have gone nowhere. On the national scene he is, frankly, a bit of a joke. What is he going to do, help Obama carry Delaware? Listen to Biden speak for 5 minutes and you come away impressed by his intelligence and gravitas. Listen to him speak for 10 minutes and you come away wondering just how much this joker is in love with his own voice. Listen to him speak for 15 minutes and you are able to identify a world class ego wound up in a very run of the mill intellect and you will feel an almost irresitable desire to break off the finger he keeps wagging at you while pontificating. Listening for twenty minutes or more is not recommended by the American Psychological Association. 
Fox News is reporting that they have confirmed Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) is Obama's VP pick. The NYT also is running the story. This is good news for McCain. Obama has chosen quite possibly the most verbose and egotistical wind bag in a Senate full of them.
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This whole episode surrounding Obama's choice of a VP is quite curious. Why wait until after the Friday news cycle to finally arrive at a decision and announce - particularly when Obama had promised an announcement on Friday. This smacks of a bit of disarray in the Obama camp. As does the fact that the vaunted mass electronic notification was not used to break the news.
Regardless, while Biden does bring a lot more experience to the Obama ticket, he is nowhere near as strong a candidate as Obama could have chosen. As Powerline noted the other day:
You can see the logic behind choosing Biden. Obama is young, so he wants an old Veep. Obama knows little about American history, diplomacy, foreign affairs or military matters, and Biden is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Superficially, it seems to make sense.
The problem is that, whereas Obama is a young lightweight, Biden is an old lightweight--Obama with a hair transplant. While Obama has only been a lightweight for 47 years, Biden has been one for 65. Is this a big plus? I doubt it. If you put Biden on a stage next to Tim Pawlenty and ask voters which one is the serious candidate, two-thirds will say Pawlenty. . . .
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