John McCain: "Who's your Daddy?"
Barack Obama: "Joe Biden."
Early Saturday Morning (August 23) presumptive Democratic Candidate Barack Obama sent a text message to his faithful revealing his Vice Presidential choice. Six term Delaware Senator Joe Biden was his pick. Biden is older, and has much more experience than the four year Illinois Senator. Clearly, the Democratic Candidate's weakness in foreign affairs was addressed with this decision. The new running mate will add experience to Obama's very short political resume, but come November, Biden's presence will not make a difference.
Obama's decision to communicate his important choice seems very curious. Instead of normal channels, the use of cell phone texting was used. This appears to be a brilliant way to get his people out to vote come election day: "Don't forget to vote for Obama today." One wonders how effective that could be since there are probably more rich republicans with cell phones. By text messaging at 3:00 AM the morning newspaper headlines where missed. A mistake? No, not really, since newsprint is becoming much less important. Obama and Biden will rule the rest of the weekend cable news cycle.
The Obama campaign should be very worried that Biden will be seen as a father figure, and that could magnify even more the lack of experience of their candidate. Omaba has risen to the top of the party on the theme of "change." One can easily question why choose someone who has been a part of the system for three and a half decades. With that in mind, one wonders if the Biden pick a reaction to recent polling data suggesting the Illinois Senator's numbers are not doing so well due to his weakness of only four years as a national politician?
The Delaware Senator also presents some other problems:
1)Biden has said many controversial things in his 35 years in the Senate. Here are a few examples:
"In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."
"[Obama is] the first mainstream African American [presidential candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
In the heated campaign of the next two months or so, Biden surely may say something he should not.
2)Twenty-one years ago the senator was accused of plagiarism when he borrowed lines from British politician Neil Kinnock in one of his speeches.
I believe Barack Obama best choice for running mate would have been Hillary Clinton. It would have patched the differences between the two and the democratic party would be completely united and very hard to defeat in November. In reality, there is an unspoken split between the Clinton and the Obama camp, and Joe Biden, a person Clinton does admire, only puts a band aid on the wound.
Joe Biden has served the public in the senate for 35 years, almost nine times longer than Barack Obama and almost twice as much as John McCain. He gives the 2008 Democratic Ticket great experience, especially in the areas of foreign policy and national security. The problem for Obama that it highlights his main weakness: his lack of experience. For a candidate that is running on the word of change, the choice is almost contradictory. This is a losing ticket.
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