MSNBC reported early Saturday morning that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has picked Sen. Joseph Biden, 65, to be his vice presidential running mate. There is an Obama rally planned in Springfield, Illinois, this afternoon to officially announce Biden’s addition to the Dem ticket.
Predictably, the half-crazed wingnuts aboard the sinking USS McCain and their allies, the 101st Keyboard Commandos, will be sharpening their pitchforks ready to stick it to the Delaware Senator and erstwhile presidential candidate in any spot that looks tender. Here are the soft places they’ll likely poke with glee:
1. Biden was once called the Senator from DuPont, and for good reason. Joe has been very chummy with the chemical giant, as well as other large corporations from his state, which has no corporate tax. These slings and arrows of outrageous fortune — considering they’re from the wholly-corporatized Republican Party — will be shamelessly slung at Biden for being too close to evil Big Bidness, probably via a strenuous Internet email campaign and multiple postings on some of the more frothing hoof-and-mouth neocon websites like Hind-Acher’s Powerline blog and Freeper Republic.
2. Joe will be endlessly drubbed for appropriating without attribution British Labour Party PM candidate Neil Kinnock’s “born the son of a coal miner, first in the family to attend college” bio that derailed Biden’s presidential run in 1988. That this might have been an innocent mistake won’t cut any mustard with the ravening wolves of the right — “Plagiarist!” “Liar!” will be sprinkled like salt on potato chips all over the right-wing Media Vomitorium, with Michelle Malkin no doubt inferring in a screechy nut-pile smackdown that perhaps Biden really is a liberal Brit, and therefore a foreigner not to be trusted. Next Sean Hannity will demand that Pennsylvania-born Biden produce his birth certificate and, when produced, will ignore it. I can see the Fox News splash now: “Is Joe Biden Really an American Citizen – How Can We Be Sure?”
3. Obama will take a hit for naming Biden since Joe has been in the US Senate for over 30 years, longer than John Sidney McBush III. “Some change you can believe in,” the Tighty-Righties will sneer without embarrassment while in the next paragraph they praise their sealed-in-amber candidate, trying to drag the country back to the Age of the Cold War and a victory in Vietnam – I mean, Iraq.
Also, look for McCainiac ads quoting Biden during the 2008 Dem primary debates wherein he called Obama too inexperienced to be president, and for his ‘yea’ vote on the Iraq invasion. I hope the Obama campaign has some quick short answers ready for these slaps up the side of the head.
Biden’s Good Points:
1. Regardless of Salon.com chief Joan Walsh’s dippy ruminations on MSNBC early this morning that Biden is some sort “working class hero,” he hardly fits that bill. What he does do, though, is bring comfort to those whites, especially the older ones, who were fence-straddling on Obama due to his color and overly-exaggerated past ties to ‘dangerous radicals.’ Would some crazy Christian Black Liberation Theologist or Closet Muslim Mole appoint an old Establishment white guy as his Veep? Taint likely.
2. While Biden has a tendency to be senatorially long-winded and stupendously boring, a tendency that Obama’s people better check from the gate, he also can deliver the goods on occasion. What’s the one Biden line everyone recalls from the primary debates? Smokin’ Joe throwing a devastating rhetorical uppercut to Rudy Giuliani, “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11.” In less than 25 words, he humorously synthesized what most people had been quietly thinking about then-GOP frontrunner Giuliani’s dismal one-note campaign. If he can muster that kind of pithy snarling Doberman job on McCain and whoever his running mate turns out to be, and it shouldn’t be hard with a flip-flopping scoundrel like Johnny Mac who isn’t exactly sure how many places he calls home, Obama’s a sure bet to be living on Pennsylvania Avenue next year.
3. Yep, Biden’s got foreign and domestic policy experience up the ying-yang, so that should help blunt the Republican attacks on Obama’s ‘lack of credentials.’ He might also drag Obama over the line in some states like Ohio and Michigan, although I wouldn’t count on that – in Iowa last winter, Biden had a hard time getting Mr. and Mrs. Six-pack to pay attention to him. That said, I can easily see him in debate with McCain’s sacrificial lamb dropping a take-down like, “I knew Ronald Reagan; I worked with Ronald Reagan; and I can tell you — John McCain is no Ronald Reagan.”
Free Advice: Stick with the short funny lines, Joe, and forget you’re a senator.
While I don’t think this is Obama’s best choice, I can see the hard political calculation behind it and, at least, Biden won’t hold him back, although a few lefties and environmentalists will take him to task for the selection.
Barak just seriously raised the stakes,
Since He has no experience then He turned around and nominated a Man with much experience for VP.
McCains choices for VP are almost as bad a choice as McCain himself,Mitt Romney or the Evangelical favorite Mike the Huck-a-bee and dont forget Guilianni.
Biden is cozy with Big Buisness which plays well
with the right evangelicals but his voting record is right along with the majority of Progressives,like Obama He tends to sit out some votes rather than vote no.
All in all Biden is a good choice,I would have preferred Hillary but all the saddlebaggage that the swiftboaters have laid on Her sadly has stuck,Biden brings a ingrediment that is palatable to the majority of Independent/right of center crowd who the O man has curried to the chagrin of the leftie southpaws.
If Barak had made his decision sooner and voted no on the FISA/DHLS then He would have remained in the catbird seat.
Now He’s going to have to fight dirty in order to regain ground with Biden along though,He wont have to go it alone.
McCain is the penultimate flip-flopper and its one thing that a Hypocrite hates its another
hypocrite,too easy.
Comment by Rainlander — August 24, 2008 @ 8:48 am
This pretty much takes Placenta…Pallenta…er, Pawlenty out of the running. Even I don’t think McCain’s that dumb. It sure will be fun to watch Biden tear Romney a new one in the debate.
Comment by Tyler in Ohio — August 24, 2008 @ 11:01 am
I still think McCain’s going with Tom Ridge, even though Loud Religion hates that he doesn’t want to outlaw abortion. Ridge is security, a former Governor, and he likes McCain.
McCain could pick up those Democrats and Independants who never caught that Obama leadership glow.
Hell, I even trust Ridge. I can never vote Republican again, but others might not be as stubborn as me.
The news media keeps saying Romney- but no one trusts Romney. He can’t even grab the Christian Willfully Ignorant because he’s Mormon. Donny Osmond doesn’t even trust Romney.
Comment by bittershaman2 — August 24, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
” Donny Osmond doesn’t even trust Romney.”
Bingo!
As Donny Osmond goes,so goes the nation!
Remember the Osmonds were more popular than the Beatles,OMG;)
I’m not sure Good’N Pawlenty were(was) ever a serious consideration,just dangling a toe in the collective waters to see what demographic group it excited.
Cheers,Rain.
Comment by Rainlander — August 24, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Rain, Obama made a few major blunders recently and one was that damn FISA vote, especially after he said he’d filibuster the bill — what in hell was he thinking?
I hear that the gloves are coming off in the next round — Biden will be going after McCain and whoever his designated playmate is with an electric cattle prod, and Obama is going to start running negative ads to cut ‘War Hero’ McBush down to size — and it’s going to commence with the GOP convention.
Bittershaman2, I think you may be right — Ridge is McCain’s kind of BS macho-man guy — but Romney is a fool with money, and McCain’s going to need Mitt’s millions in the fall. (The collection plate’s going to be running a little thin come October.) Drip-Dry Pawlenty was some kind of bad joke — he couldn’t even carry home state Minnesota these days — and Huckabee isn’t ‘hearted’ enough to drag John-Boy’s withered carcass into the winner’s circle.
The BM are floating Colin Powell’s name as a potential Veep for Mayor McCheese — ho, ho, “I’m not really a lying, kneel-to-the-monkey scum-sucker, I just played one on TV to start a war.”I don’t think it’s going to happen.
Comment by RS Janes — August 24, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
Thanks,RSJ.
I hope that I zen this right but Ridge is considered to be too polarizing to be sanitized
with the money and time left.
Where is Ronald Reagan,in Our darkest hour?
With Our luck it’ll turn out to be Frank Keating.
Cheers,Rain.
Comment by Rainlander — August 24, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
McCain would probably be better off with a dead Reagan than a live Romney. Well, I take that back — they’re both stiffs, so how could anyone tell the difference?
Comment by RS Janes — August 28, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
Sarah Palin,VP.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
She is already under investigation.
Ted Stevens trial is what,three weeks away?
Its so stupid that only Karl Rove could have come up with it,or maybe Norquist?
Time to pull the sheets over 30 years of conservative assholery,the patient has finally and blessedly passed.
Its almost time to pop that bottle of 1977 Moet
and partay like its 1999,Baby!
Comment by Rainlander — August 29, 2008 @ 9:29 pm