Barack America and Senator Blowhard

The more I've thought about Barack Obama's pick of Joe Biden for V.P., the more I become convinced that Obama was stuck with him because there were no better choices readily available. Obama waited until the dead of night on a Friday night-Saturday morning--after all the bars have closed and everybody is tucked into bed in a drunken stupor--to announce the pick. There's just no way that Obama had any confidence that Biden was going to give him a boost with a strategy like that.

I listened to NPR's coverage of the announcement today while out running errands. One commenter noted that Biden is known as "Senator Blowhard." Now, forget all the amusing and adolescent sexual connotations, but that doesn't seem like a ringing endorsement of the pick to me. But what I've mainly picked up on from Biden was two things: his ringing endorsement of John McCain just three years ago and his penchant for sticking his foot in his mouth constantly.

The McCain campaign was prepared for the Biden pick and came out swinging with this very effective ad:



The ad makes two of the most important points about this election: that Barack Obama's inexperience makes him not ready for the presidency, and that John McCain has been so bipartisan that Democrats actually want to run with him. Regardless of what Democrats think they can use of Romney's speeches against McCain, there's simply nothing that compares to having your vice presidential pick quoted admiring the opposition presidential candidate.

To be sure, in his speech today, Joe Biden tried to spin away from his earlier remarks. As hatchet man, his job is to say the things Obama has been scared--er, unwilling to say: namely, that John McCain is just a third Bush term. I suppose this line of attack, expected all summer, is effective with a certain brand of voter. But McCain is well-known for his willingness to go against his party and work in a bipartisan way. It's not hard for McCain to tally the number of times he has done this (frequently to the chagrin of conservatives, but it makes the point that McCain is nobody's to command).

Biden's gaffe machine has already revved up and started producing. Here's a bit Dana picked up from Biden in his very first speech as the Democrat V.P. candidate:



Barack America? This sort of gaffe dovetails nicely with the McCain campaign's "The One" commercials. I can't help but think the Obama campaign is already having buyer's remorse.