This Dude's Abidin' By Obama's VP Pick

Joe Biden was a pretty savvy pick for a supposed political neophyte to make for his running mate.

Biden complements Obama in a lot of areas where Obama could use a little more strength. He’s been in the Senate since Obama was in grade school (1973, to be exact), offsetting concerns about Obama’s lack of experience. More importantly, Biden is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, giving the ticket a high level of crucial foreign policy expertise that many felt Obama lacks. Most importantly, Biden will appeal to working-class whites who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary by the lunch-bucketful.

Biden may be official a Senator from Deleware, but he’s got strong ties to Pennsylvania, a state that Obama needs to win and one that was already leaning his way. This pick should put it solidly in Obama’s camp, and it could help in other rust-belt states such as Ohio and Indiana.

All of these were known qualities before Biden’s speech in Springfield yesterday. What was unexpected is that he came out swinging with the type of attacks from which Obama has recused himself. Talking about the economic worries typical Americans are likely to be discussing at their kitchen tables, Biden quipped, “All John McCain has to worry about is which of his seven kitchen tables to sit at,” in a reference to McCain and his wife’s real-estate holdings. It was a bit of a cheap shot, but it certainly resonated with the blue-collar voters Biden is supposed to attract. (And let’s face it, it was a good line.)

As someone with a strong journalistic background, I’m not crazy about the 1988 plagiarism charges against Biden. But even I can recognize that if that’s the worst thing you can dig up on a guy after 36 years in the Senate, he’s pretty clean.

After all, 20 years ago John McCain was taking campaign contributions and free vacations from the guys who were tanking the Savings and Loan industry. (Don’t believe me? I looked it up.) Undercutting the U.S. economy vs. ripping off a couple lines from guys who would have given them away willingly: I’m thinking the former did a little more lasting damage.

I hear there are still a few malcontents out there in the Hillary Clinton camp who are angry that Clinton was never seriously considered. These people need a reality check. That has nothing to do with any qualifications that Clinton might have; it’s just that the rest of the world figured out a long time ago that Obama and Clinton flat-out won’t work together.

Deep down, there is a part of me that was really hoping Obama would pick a woman to show that the backlash against Clinton is not in any way a backlash against womankind. I thought Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) would have been an outstanding choice, with her 16 years in the Senate, her foreign-relations experience and her appeal to Jews, another constituency that heavily leaned toward Clinton. But for some reason she never got any consideration. Kathleen Sebelius was the only woman to get serious speculation as a running mate, but the Kansas governor probably appeals to too many of the same constituencies as Obama to have helped the ticket.

It doesn’t really matter, though. Some women -- not many, but some -- would have felt slighted more by the choice of a woman other than Clinton than they would have by the choice of a man. These are the women who will forever be convinced that Clinton was rejected because certain men are somehow “threatened” by her, even though most of us have voted for any number of women for all kinds of political offices. (I wonder if these are the same women who assume that men are taking a pass on them en masse because men are supposedly “afraid of commitment,” not because these particular women are “completely bat-shit insane,” but I don’t pretend to understand women.)

Now, where was I? Ah yes … Joe Biden …

Solid choice. It shows that while Obama intends to lead by his own principles, he’s open enough to be guided by the voice of experience.

It will be interesting to see if McCain makes an equally compelling choice. Mitt Romney is out there, and could throw a wrench into the Democrats’ plans to win Michigan. Stay tuned; this could be a race all the way down to the wire.