Not my favorite either, but of the alleged front runners, (him, Bayh, and Kaine) I preferred Biden.

I didn't think it would be any of the three the media were obsessing over, but of those three, Biden was my personal favorite. I expected it to be Kaine for his broader appeal, but out of all of them, Biden has tons of national security experience and a couple decades in the Senate. I didn't want it to be Bayh, but I figured it was going to be Kaine or a surprise.

Pretty happy with Biden.

This makes things rough for McCain. If Obama had done the easy thing and given in to pressure and picked Clinton, McCain could have had a scarecrow as his running mate. The Republican Party is split into three warring factions at present; the religious fundies, the neocons, and the moderate Republicans. Hillary would have united all three of those in their opposition to her getting anywhere near the White House again. Given that Obama didn't pick Hillary, those factions are going to be at each other's throats again.

Now, while the media narrative is going to be "Obama is trying to alienate the woman vote by not picking Hillary or a woman!", this puts McCain in a tough place. If McCain picks a pro-life running mate, Obama doesn't have to worry one bit about the woman vote. Additionally, that will alienate the moderate faction, who are generally pro-choice or just ambivalent about it. If McCain picks a pro-choice running mate, like Lieberman or Ridge, he alienates the religious fundies. Should be interesting. Ball is back in the old guy's court.

Mark Penn's paid staffers are out in force today, posing as "lifelong Democrats" who will "vote for McCain since Hillary isn't on the ticket". Given that Mark Penn's PR firm is owed $5mil by Clinton's campaign, I've got a strong suspicion that the crowds of rabid "Hillary supporters" on the internet are working for him.

Hoo boy. Here's the unintended consequence of picking Biden- he's one of hte guys who went on record saying that Obama didn't have enough experience, so of course McCain is jumping up and down beating that drum that "Obama's VP doesn't even have confidence in him".  They put out an ad about that already. 

I think my biggest problem with the Biden pick is that it reinforces the perceptions that Obama's a foreign policy lightweight that needs someone to cover him there, and that years and years and years as a Senator necessarily constitutes valuable experience that a President simply cannot do without.

Without Biden around, Obama can make the argument that John McCain hasn't actually learned anything in decades as a Senator; he just keeps making the same mistakes.  But Biden takes that of argument off the table, since if supporting the Iraq War is a huge blunder that speaks poorly of your judgement, then why on earth should Joe Biden be one god-forbid away from the presidency?

As far as actual policy I've got some beefs with Biden as well, but that's anyone, and I don't think he'd be at all a bad Vice President.  And he certainly brings some pluses to the campaign table along with his minuses.  If you were to rank every person in America as a potential second seat for the Obama campaign, Joe Biden would certainly be in the top 10%.  I'm just not sure that one of the remaining 30 million people wouldn't have been a better answer.

Myself, I think its good that Obama has selected someone who's been in politics a long time.  I would have preferred a governor over a senator, but whatever.

What bugs me about Biden, though, are his policy positions.  Federal smoking ban?  Universal national service?  He's also one of the fiercest supporters of the "War on Drugs" which I think has done a lot more damage to our civil liberties than the "War on Terror" has.  And he supported the federal marriage amendment too.  To my mind the only thing that's good about him is that he's relatively pro free trade.

I think, possibly, the most entertaining thing the Republicans could do, would be to put up a female VP with McCain. Oh, the LULZ that would provide.

Why do I say this? Because frankly, most Republicans, are probably gonna vote Republican, regardless. But some of the female democrats, especially the ones irked over Clinton? Man, that party would splinter up again in seconds. BOOM. Party implode!
*insert relevant Death Star un-picture here*

I mean, if the republicans are "progressive" enough to put a woman in a top position, but not the democrats.... Eh? Eh? You see, how LULZy it could become, yes?

My hope is that McCain picks a pro-life religious type, as that will help with keeping the voters inexplicably attached to Hillary as a concept (instead of actually listening to what she says about supporting and voting for Obama) from voting to McCain.

Was it Gwoo who thought the McCain/Obama race would be a civil one?  I wish that were the case, but it looks as if the McCain camp's latest strategy is to stick their fingers in their ears and run around screaming, "POW! POW! POW!" for the next two months and change.

Also, my LJ is bouncing today because of a dissection I did of the Obama as elitist narrative.  Even there, someone played the POW card.

Can I has November plz?

~Peter

Word on the street is that McCain is picking Sarah Palin as his VP.