Just as news broke early this morning of Sen. Barack Obama's choice of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate, Sen. John McCain's campaign sent out a prepared attack ad using a quote from Biden saying that Obama was not "ready" to be president. It was predictable given that the two men were primary opponents; more interesting will be the Obama campaign's response this morning.
From a purely political perspective, no presidential campaign has ever handled the announcement of a running mate so deftly. The Obama campaign set a new standard that will be studied for years.
Other reactions:
New York Times: "Mr. Obama's selection ended a two-month search that was conducted
almost entirely in secret. It reflected a critical strategic choice by
Mr. Obama: To go with a running mate who could reassure voters about
gaps in his résumé, rather than to pick someone who could deliver a
state or reinforce Mr. Obama's message of change."
Politico:
"On foreign policy and national security, an area where John McCain
regularly assails Obama's lack of experience, Democrats offer few more
seasoned practitioners than Biden."
First Read: "On the Democratic side, it was a collective 'phew.' As the days got
nearer for the pick, it was hard to find a Democrat -- even savvy
Clintonites -- who weren't hoping it would be Biden. Only the most
strident Hillary supporters appear to be upset this morning. On the GOP
side, the sound you heard was disappointed silence. Of everyone on the
short list, the candidate many Republicans least wanted to see Obama
pick was Biden."
Mark Halperin: "Balanced against all of those unmatched qualifications is one quality
that has afflicted Biden for as long as anyone can remember: a persistent
tendency to say silly, offensive, and off-putting things. Over the next few
days (and, likely, weeks) some of Biden's ungreatest hits of gab will be
recycled by the media and Republicans aiming to take the luster off Obama's
choice of running mate."
Craig Crawford: "Obama-Biden works on several fronts, A longtime sentimental favorite among the Democratic faithful, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden provides a comfort zone for labor leaders, Catholics (he is one) and national-security voters. Although Biden's poor fundraising skills doomed his presidential campaigns, he performs extremely well in debates and demonstrated considerable skill at shifting from the arcane language of the Senate chamber to the street language of the campaign trail."
David Brody: "Time will tell if Barack Obama made the right choice in picking Joe
Biden but if you look at it on paper, it makes a whole lot of sense."
Marc Ambinder: "Obama-Biden will be a formidable ticket, and a risky ticket, and not a comfort zone choice for Obama."
Jonathan Cohn: "Conservatives will blast [Biden's] record, just as
surely as liberals will (or should) celebrate it. But one of the
virtues of having Biden as the vice presidential nominee is that he
won't take those kinds of attacks lightly. He'll fight back. He'll
remind people, rightly, that being a liberal Democrat means raising the
minimum wage, making sure everybody has affordable health care,
providing strong public schools, and protecting human rights. Then,
he'll ask why conservative Republicans don't want the same things.
That's exactly the kind of political debate this country needs. By
picking Biden as a running mate, Obama has signaled that he welcomes
this argument--and intends, finally, to win it."
August 23, 2008
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