Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday selected Joe Biden as his running mate.
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Republican senators like Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar and Arlen Specter, along with many of Obama’s grassroots supporters, are praising the choice even as Sen. Hillary Clinton supporters are up in arms over the Biden selection.
Did Obama make the right choice for vice president? That depends on whom you ask. It’s a question charged with as much emotion as just about everything else surrounding the 2008 presidential election.
I Pledge Allegiance to Obama?
Matt Caldecutt, a publicist from Rego Park, New York, likes Obama’s choice. Biden, he says, gives Obama a team member with foreign policy experience who will appeal to disaffected Hillary supporters.
“I totally expect that McCain will now choose Lieberman in the hopes of taking some of those disaffected Hillary supporters into his own camp,” Caldecutt says.
Ron Komorowski, an entrepreneur and inventor, agrees. As he sees it, international relations is the most important issue facing the United States right now and Obama needs someone experienced in foreign policy.
“The global recession is caused by global resources and now being used for the struggle to obtain power,” Komorowski says. “If only Obama realized we must get to work and go down and get our own oil and natural gas or World War III is coming, then all would work out just fine. Energy resources are the power today.”
Author and Writer G. Miki Hayden says Obama would have to have picked current vice president Dick Cheney as his running mate to lose her vote, but the selection of Biden? Bad choice, she argues.
“Biden disrespected Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings, which I find hard to forget or forgive,” Hayden says. “Now Obama has disrespected Hillary by choosing Biden. Obama is further clueless on energy and the economy. Other than all that, he gets my vote. All in all, however, we’re screwed.”
An Ex-Senate Staffer Weighs In
Jeff Schrade worked as a staff member in the U.S. Senate for seven years (from the start of 2001 through the end of 2007). As much as he admired Biden’s intellect and observations on foreign affairs, he says the fine gentleman from Delaware has a habit of talking too much, and that could doom Obama’s chances.
“The early polls show that Sen. Biden’s nomination has done nothing for Sen. Obama’s odds in winning the election. At this point, it appears that Biden’s more likely to hurt Sen. Obama rather than help,” Schrade says.
What’s more, Biden’s earlier comments praising McCain and referring to Sen. McCain ‘my personal hero’ is great campaign fodder for Republicans and should help McCain a bit with some moderate Democrats and independent voters, Schrade says. He is waiting to see how well Democrats defend Biden’s earlier praise for McCain.
Boycotting Biden?
“Since the Democratic party behaved in such a sexist way toward Hillary Clinton I am no longer a Democrat after 60 years of supporting the party,” says Doris Jeanette, a psychologist at the Center for New Psychology in Philadelphia. “The only VP he could have chosen to keep me aboard would have been Hillary or another highly qualified woman.”
Julia Stewart, a business, life and mentor coach and president of the School of Coaching Mastery in St. Louis, is disappointed with Obama’s choice.
“Hillary’s die-hard supporters are female Boomers, like me, who were first introduced to Biden during the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings. Biden was nasty to Anita and that colors everything else he does for us and it reminds us of the short-shrift Hillary got from the DNC. The Dems may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory once again,” Stewart says.
“Sorry, Barack, but Biden bores me already,” says Patti Kokino, a school change activist in Ventura, Calif. “Hasn’t anyone else noticed the distinct lack of spark and fire in the presidential campaign since the Obama-Clinton competition was cut off? Those two had great chemistry, a fabulous message, plus Hillary would have added the heft, brains, and even, yes, glamour, that could have put the Dems over the top.”
Kokino predicts the GOP is going to “eat Barack alive.” Some polls are already showing McCain and Obama running neck and neck. Kokino says she is amazed that Obama actually followed the traditional pundits’ advice and eliminated Clinton from consideration as vice president, despite her 18 million voters who continue to be vociferous supporters.
“Really dumb, another mismanaged Dem disaster,” Kokino says. “Obama-Clinton would have been the sure ticket, and I am appalled that the guardians of the status quo have prevented the Obama camp from seeing that. So much for the rhetoric of change.”
Don Clarkson from Portland, Ore. says he thinks Obama made a mistake by choosing a dreary old white guy from Insider Washington, it has upset him so much he is leaving the Democratic party and searching for a truly liberal party.
“This party has now shot itself in the foot and we’ll have 8 more years of George W,” Clarkson says. “Hillary would have made mincemeat out of McCain.”
Breaking the Republicans’ Southern Strategy
By selecting Biden, Obama obviously wants to counter Republican arguments that he is inexperienced, according to Tyson Chaney, a blogger at Politics 2000. The pick reminds him a lot of John Kennedy adding Lyndon Johnson to his ticket in 1960.
Unlike Texas in 1960, however, Delaware in 2008 is a safe Democratic state with just three electoral votes. Obama doesn’t need Biden’s help to carry Dover or Wilmington, Chaney says. However, unlike many who think Obama blew it with Biden, Chaney isn’t for Clinton, either.
As Chaney sees it, Obama should have selected former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn.
“Nunn can match Biden’s foreign policy experience and Washington know-how. Nunn, like Biden, has bi-partisan respect and can work with Republicans to get things done,” Chaney says.
“In addition, Nunn can help Obama win Georgia. Obama is making inroads there, thanks in part to the state’s large African-American population. However, adding a native son could have made the difference in Georgia.”
Chaney points out that only two Democrats – Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton – have been elected president since 1968. Both men came from the South. The 2008 Democratic ticket has one man from the Upper Midwest and one man from the Northeast. Combined with the West Coast, the Democrats have just three strongholds in the country.
“The Democrats need to break the Republicans’ Southern strategy if they want to win in November,” Chaney says. “Putting Sam Nunn on the ticket would have helped.”
Contact The Voice magazine editor at editor@thevoicemagazine.com or 954-456-6032
Yeah, he made sure McCain will get elected in a Landslide.