Granted that Clark, like any possible veep, comes with drawbacks of his own, and that McCain's runningmate will necessarily have his own baggage, I
still question 1. Whether Obama is going in the right direction with his choice of running mate, and 2. Whether Biden is even the best pick for that
direction that Obama has chosen.
Certainly Biden will go after McCain, but this is going to look like a major contradiction unless they can gain the moral highground to accuse John
McCain of flipflopping as a justification for changing their views on him. According to a CNN poll however, both sides are widely viewed as
flipflopping, so using that as an explanation for Biden's sudden disagreement with McCain is going to sound like the pot calling the kettle black,
and probably won't be believed by independents.
CNN poll: Voters say both candidates flip-flop
Sixty-one percent of voters polled said McCain has changed his mind for political reasons; 37 percent said he has not. Fifty-nine percent of those
polled said Obama also shifts positions with the political winds; 38 percent said he does not.
That's a change from 2004, Holland said.
"One of the reasons President Bush won re-election in 2004 was that only one-third of voters believed he would change his policy positions because of
changing political dynamics. Most voters, on the other hand, believed that John Kerry was a flip-flopper."
Then there's the question of who exactly is going to think more of Barrack Obama's foreign policy strength based on the selection of Joe Biden. And
the answer is politically involved Democrats. People who don't take an active interest on what's happening inside the Democratic Party don't know
who Joe Biden is.
A
Gallup Poll taken yesterday suggests that Biden is at least slightly
more helpful than the earlier poll I cited claimed (+7% favorability now versus +4% on the last one) but that's still the lowest a democratic ticket
has seen in recent memory.
A net 17% of nationwide registered voters said they were more likely to vote for John Kerry in 2004 on the basis of his selection of John Edwards
as his running mate (24% more likely and 7% less likely).
A net 12% of voters reported being more likely to vote for Al Gore in 2000 on account of his choosing Joe Lieberman (16% more likely and 4% less
likely).
A net 25% of voters were more likely to vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 on account of Al Gore (33% more likely and 8% less likely).
Gallup attributed this in part to a lack of recognition.
One possible reason for Biden's minimal impact on voter support for Obama today is that more than half of U.S. voters have no views of the
veteran U.S. senator from Delaware, either not knowing enough about him to express an opinion or saying they have never heard of him. On this basis,
Biden looks very much like Lieberman in 2000.
Does Obama really need to score points on Iraq with his own base? Has McCain extended any serious kind of common-ground plan targeting anti-war
democrats or left-leaning independents? On the contrary I seem to recall him promising to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell again (which the
anti-war side seems to read as, 'without regard for consequences').
It looks to me like Obama thought he was going to be going after the vulnerable edges of McCain's constituency with a foreign policy feather in his
cap, but instead he got a mainstream Democratic intellectual who probably won't be listened to by those leaning to McCain's side. One sentence from
the Newsweek story pretty well sums it up.
The difference between John McCain and Joe Biden is that one is on the side of change, and one isn't."
That quote from a senior Obama aide is why the Obama campaign thinks Biden can edge McCain out for Republican-leaners, but it's also exactly why
Biden actually cannot do so.
His positive trait is that he reminds people of the Republican candidate. His negative trait is that he's not the Republican candidate.
What Obama really needs to do is ask himself why he's gone from being a "rockstar" to lacking excitement in his base to the point that the built-in
Democratic advantage is negated by a projected Republican advantage in participation.
Whether he likes it or not, that probably has a lot to do with his primary fight with Clinton, so he really does need to make a gesture towards that
wing of his party. Seblius, Clark, and Gore were all reasonable moves in that direction, each for a different reason, stopping short of taking Hillary
herself (there was never much serious chance of that happening unless the party could twist his arm).
The problem with ignoring them is right there in the polls I posted last time. They are planning to stay home on election day, and that's perfect for
McCain- it gives him the edge without actually having to compromise his positions to earn their votes.
Inexplicably, the Obama camp seems to acknowledge the points I'm raising with Newsweek:
The Obama campaign believes the recent tightening of the polls is the result of one main factor: Republicans coming back into the fold for McCain.
Their goal with Biden is to bring home the Democratic holdouts—especially the ones who voted for Clinton in the primaries. Those voters want more
than reassurance about Obama's foreign policy credentials, in the campaign's assessment. They want someone who looks and sounds more like them
and can connect with them on their own terms about the economy. On that basis, the campaign points to Biden's record of working to put 100,000
new cops on the streets, to his ability to talk freely and easily in union halls, and to his limitless supply of stories about his humble
Irish-American roots.
So now they are billing a foreign policy guy as a jobs guy. It doesn't seem like the hot setup to me. I envisioned Edwards as Obama's running mate
up until the infidelity story broke (and I had predicted that someone would sabotage Edwards with a scandal before running mate selections if Obama
was nominated), and I think the above seems to support that, as some unions including the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, withheld their
endorsements after Edwards was out.
(Oh, and neither here nor there, but McCain's "Moses Ad" doesn't suck as bad as it might appear to. The combination of religious and political
promises in one man is designed as a very subtle suggestion that he is the anti-christ and is actually quite likely to work with hardcore religious
conservatives who think McCain is too soft on their key issues)
I have never in my life been this excited about a presidential election. I hope
I'm not disappointed. Biden was my first choice and I can't wait to see where this leads.
