I have been saying for a very long time now that this US Presidential Election is a must win for Barack Obama. He is in the best possible position to be the next President, and his choice of Vice Presidential running mate had a lot riding on it. If he chose wrong here, it could well have all been over. No other Presidential race in recent history has had this level of pressure riding on the nominee’s pick for Vice President quite like this one.
I have said all along that an Obama/Clinton ticket would have been suicide. I always liked an Obama/Richardson ticket, but with so much riding on it, a Black/Latino ticket may have pushed the envelope a little bit far. Richardson is extremely competent, and I’m sure he was among the numbers, but in the end, it does get down to a choice that your opponents can’t pick apart too much.
Enter Senator Joe Biden, who himself has had a tilt at the Presidential job more than once over the last 20 years. He’s a stylish, savvy old workhorse, who knows and is respected by the working class, and has extensive foreign policy experience. Obama needs the blue collar crowd, and he needs them bad. Hillary had them all sewn up, and Obama needed someone who could get them back. Biden will do that.
Obama is inexperienced. Biden has been a Senator for Delaware since 1972. Obama has no real foreign policy experience, which in this present climate could see your political career go down like nine pins. Biden has been on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for many years. So, if Barack Obama had a ’shopping list’ of inadequacies, and needed to acquire products to get rid of them, then shopping at ‘Biden-Mart’ is all he needs to do. Analysts seem satisfied with Obama’s choice, and believe Obama has ticked off all the things he didn’t have, when choosing Biden. The only criticism they have about Biden is that he has the tendency to have verbal diarrhoea, and he was critical of Obama in the past. However, criticism of each other in the argy-bargy of getting the nomination is normal. If anyone criticised Obama the most, it was Hillary Clinton. They all wanted the top job, and in politics, you cut your opponent down before you get cut down. I am sure Biden is 100% behind Obama. He has been wanting to have a sniff at the White House for a mighty long time so he isn’t going to blow it now.
Biden is a good choice. He is comfortable in his own skin. He is a good, strong, matter-of-fact type speaker, and he knows people’s weak points. Obama needs to say no more to Biden but ‘attack’, and John McCain won’t have a hope. Biden and McCain have been working together in the Senate for a very long time, so they each know where to locate each other’s Achilles Heel. However, I think Biden has the smarts to win out in the end. Just quietly, I think McCain was hoping it wouldn’t be Biden.
The next few weeks will prove interesting, as Biden is let off the leash. He has a head start on McCain, who is yet to name his VP. McCain has had months of free reign to sit back and ‘relax’, while Obama and Clinton slogged it out for the nomination. I am sure he was quietly confident that the monumental tussle would take its toll, and he would be the beneficiary in the end. Now Obama has proven what a savvy player he is by getting in ahead of McCain in naming his VP. By the time McCain gets off his flabby old arse and names his choice, Biden will have been scrutinised, prodded, poked, challenged, vetted, hung, drawn and quartered, and will be standing with arms crossed like Bugs Bunny, holding a carrot and saying “What’s Up John?”
Obama may be young, but his campaign has been flawless, and that is in part to the people he picks to run his campaign. His advisors are giving him good, sound advice, and he is obviously acting on that advice. With Biden in on the deal, this campaign is going to become a well oiled machine. Barring a major stuff up, Obama will be the next President of the United States.
It will also be nice to see Joe Biden put some decency, respect, honesty and integrity back into the role of VP, which has been sadly lacking these last 7 and a half years. If they play it right, Obama and Biden could become the greatest political team in US history.
Enjoy your day.
