Romney is now officially the worst choice for McCain as VP. Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Liz Dole would be most excellent choices - as women they would make a big dent in the traditional gender gap (women pro democrat) and there's no ammo left for Obama/Biden to respond to such a move. Biden's a good guy, but he's said some bad things about Obama during the campaign that should make good commercials for McCain's side. This is going to be very interesting going forward.
Just to reiterate a few things I said about Biden earlier: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92NPG8G0&show_article=1 <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: bold;" valign="top" width="99%">Biden speaks _ and speaks _ his own mind</td> <td rowspan="3" valign="top" align="right"></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="99%">Aug 23 12:51 AM US/Eastern By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press Writer</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <!-- date/author end --> <!-- article start --> WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama told everyone he wanted a running mate who will challenge his thinking, and now he's got one. Joe Biden's tendency to speak his own mind—and speak and speak—is entwined in his DNA. The loquacious Delaware senator brings more than verbiage to Obama's side. Biden is a foreign policy heavyweight with a decade longer in the Senate than the seasoned Republican presidential candidate, John McCain. That's almost three more decades of experience than his new boss. In Washington, Biden, 65, is known as a collegial figure even when he's competitive—one who can spin flowery praise one moment and biting fulmination the next. His second presidential campaign faltered early on, just one of the Democrats shunted to the sidelines as the bracing contest between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton sucked the air out of the rest of the field. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is one of the most influential foreign policy voices in Congress. An internationalist and strong supporter of the United Nations, he is a leading critic of what he sees as the vague, unilateralist approach of President Bush. Biden voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq invasion, which Obama opposed from the start. Since then, he's become a firm critic of the conflict and pushed through a resolution last year declaring that Bush's troop increase—now considered a military success—was "not in the national interest." One of the youngest politicians ever elected to the Senate—he was 29—Biden entered the 1988 Democratic presidential primary promising to "rekindle the fire of idealism in our society." He reluctantly quit the race three months later after he was caught lifting lines from a speech by a British Labour Party leader. In his latest effort, Biden proved to be a cheerful campaigner who mixed easily with voters, got along with rivals and displayed a self-deprecating sense of humor that leavened debates and speeches. When he was asked in one debate whether he's much too wordy, he drew laughs with a one-word answer, "No." Obama jumped in to defend him on another occasion when he was asked if he had a problem with minorities. The question was rooted in Biden's occasional gaffes. He had apologized earlier for describing Obama as "articulate" and "clean" in one unguarded episode that was taken by some to have a racial overtone. And he'd had to defend his remark that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent." Biden confronted tragedy five weeks after his first election. In 1972, his first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed when a tractor-trailer broad-sided her station wagon as she drove home with a family Christmas tree. His sons Beau and Hunt were badly hurt. He was sworn in from the hospital bedside of one his sons and still won't work on Dec. 18, the date of the accident. In 1977, Biden married Jill Tracy Jacobs. They have a daughter, Ashley. Both of his sons are lawyers, and the elder son, Beau, was elected state attorney general of Delaware in November. Biden himself had a close brush with death in February 1988, when he was hospitalized for two brain aneurysms. It was seven months before he could return to the Senate.
Also, the "change" theme of Obama's campaign rings hollow when he picked the ultimate Washington insider/power broker.
Good choice for Obama. Biden is a strong supporter of Albanians, and also Kosovo's independence. I'm still voting for McCain but now knowing that Biden will be there as vice president in case Obama wins, I feel much better.
Man, Biden is out there making his speech like he's a Washington insider. "We can't have more of the same failed policies." And Chris Matthews looks like he's about to cry! Dude is also accusing neo-cons of "enjoying" the conflict in Georgia and Iraq instead of going in and winning it.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080823/D92NT5P80.html [FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]Aug 23, 5:02 AM (ET) By RON FOURNIER[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif] DENVER (AP) - The candidate of change went with the status quo. In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness - inexperience in office and on foreign policy - rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions. He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate - the ultimate insider - rather than a candidate from outside Washington, such as Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia or Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; or from outside his party, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; or from outside the mostly white male club of vice presidential candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't even make his short list. The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative - a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image. <table width="210" align="left" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="center"><table width="150" border="1" bordercolor="#cbcbcd" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr align="middle"><td></td></tr><tr><td>[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif](AP) Democratic presidential hopefuls Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., left, laughs with Sen. Joseph Biden,... Full Image[/FONT]</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>Democratic strategists, fretting over polls that showed McCain erasing Obama's lead this summer, welcomed the move. They, too, worried that Obama needed a more conventional - read: tougher - approach to McCain. "You've got to hand it to the candidate and the campaign. They have a great sense of timing and tone and appropriateness. Six months ago, people said he wasn't tough enough on Hillary Clinton - he was being too passive - but he got it right at the right time," said Democratic strategist Jim Jordan. "He'll get it right again." Indeed, Obama has begun to aggressively counter McCain's criticism with negative television ads and sharp retorts from the campaign trail. A senior Obama adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his boss has expressed impatience with what he calls a "reverence" inside his campaign for his message of change and new politics. In other words, Obama is willing - even eager - to risk what got him this far if it gets him to the White House. Biden brings a lot to the table. An expert on national security, the Delaware senator voted in 2002 to authorize military intervention in Iraq but has since become a vocal critic of the conflict. He won praise for a plan for peace in Iraq that would divide the country along ethnic lines. Chief sponsor of a sweeping anti-crime bill that passed in 1994, Biden could help inoculate Obama from GOP criticism that he's soft on crime - a charge his campaign fears will drive a wedge between white voters and the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House. So the question is whether Biden's depth counters Obama's inexperience - or highlights it? After all, Biden is anything but a change agent, having been in office longer than half of all Americans have been alive. Longer than McCain. And he talks too much. On the same day he announced his second bid for the presidency, Biden found himself explaining why he had described Obama as "clean." And there's the 2007 ABC interview in which Biden said he would stand by an earlier statement that Obama was not ready to serve as president. It seems Obama is worried that some voters are starting to agree. ---_ EDITOR'S NOTE: Ron Fournier has covered national politics for The Associated Press for nearly 20 years. [/FONT]
^^^ That's AP writer Fournier who's been sweet on Obama all along. It's not damned if you do, damned if you don't. He either is a candidate of "change" and executes on that theme, or he's not (and looks foolish for everything he said all along). Obama's problem all along is that he's inexperienced and underqualified for the job. If he picked a guy like Biden, then Biden makes Obama look even more inexperienced and underqualified (contract and compare the two!). If he picked a lesser known Washington outsider, then the whole ticket looks inexperienced and underqualified. There was one guy Obama should have picked, and nobody would have found any negatives to say about it: Bill Richardson. You get a Washington outsider (governor of NM) who's also a minority, but who has considerable foreign policy and executive branch credentials. What Fournier points out that really jumps off the page at me is how this move looks - like Obama's key policy position (Iraq War) is stupid and he needs a Biden to straighten that out (and other things, too).
Bill would have been another respectable choice, I don't have a problem with him. My previous one-liner has nothing to do with party politics. I just think there is always something bad one can say about the VP. Bill Richardson was surrounded in innuendos of misconduct with women before, and Biden is said to have a bit more experience in foreign policy. I also don't see how Barry admitted that his key position was stupid (the beginning of the war).
If he didn't want Hillary, he should have picked somebody that could help him win one of the big toss-up states.
Obama also has his attack dog, the guy who's not afraid to speak his mind and attack McCain and his running mate. Only problem is that could eventually become a detriment to the campaign.
Hillary was beating McCain in Florida and Ohio. She can't ruin Obama's legacy if he doesn't get elected, that's why I'd make a sacrifice and wouldn't feel so bad at night if she was the VP.
I've said before, I think she wants Obama to lose to McCain so she can come in four years from now and run again. I don't think anything else she could get: Senate Majority Leader, Governor of New York, Supreme Court Justice, Attorney General, or Vice President is going to do it. Of course, she and Bill have to go out and campaign for Obama and fake enthusiasm for Obama in order to keep their standing in the Democratic party.
