OPINION:
The Democratic Party elite and grass-roots members are all raving about their presumptive vice presidential nominee Joe Biden in between letting everyone know the talking point of the week — the number of homes and condominiums that John McCain owns. The Democrats, now able to stop panicking about Barack Obama’s slide in the polls, can live it up in Denver. Or can they?
The fact is that the Democrats are going to have to spend this week and the next two months explaining to their voters how the “change” campaign became the “business as usual campaign” and why that is better for the country - especially for young people who had armed themselves for a generational takeover. A separate problem remains with Hillary Clinton supporters, who have refused to get over the fact that she didn’t win the nomination and wasn’t selected to be vice president. These people are feeling vindicated, even though this ticket represents a far better best-of-both-worlds scenario than her presence would have produced.
Mr. Biden is a solid pick as a vice president for Mr. Obama. A reluctant politician who took the oath of office for Senate at the bedside of his dying wife and infant daughter in 1972, Mr. Biden’s political vision was formed while living in and representing Delaware, a low-tax, pro-business state. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, grew up politically in a capital of high taxes, socially liberal Chicago.
While Mr. Biden is the expert on foreign policy (an issue pundits and some voters were concerned that Mr. Obama didn’t have a firm grasp of) and a seasoned politician with a wealth of experience, his selection reveals Mr. Obama’s own insecurity about his own credentials. The Republicans are already attacking the ticket by using Mr. Biden’s own words of discomfort with Mr. Obama. They can also point to the fact that, even though he pounded Mr. Obama rhetorically during the Democratic primaries, both men have been firmly ensconced on the political left when it comes to foreign policy on issues like withdrawing troops from Iraq and U.S. policy toward Iran. Indeed, Mr. Biden, since his election the Senate in 1972, has generally voted with the George McGovern/Ted Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party on national security issues, whether the question was defeating communism in Central America, the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s that helped bring down the Soviet Union or the 1991 Iraq War. That said, Mr. Biden is no knee-jerk leftist, and he has a healthy tendency from time to time to turn his scorn on the political left - as he has done during the past year regarding funds for military operations in Iraq.
The Democrats could have done much worse than Mr. Biden when it comes to selecting a vice president. But next to his running mate’s 35 years in the Senate, Mr. Obama’s four years in that chamber seem to be just a blip in time. The hope is that Mr. Biden will help Mr. Obama overcome a major political problem: the growing perception that he is unprepared to lead a nation at war.
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