I've let it known how I feel about Sen. Joe Robinette Biden. He's very smart and very political. Come on ... he's only been trying to get into the White House for 20 years!!! The American public has voted him off the island again and again.
While I don't know him well, Sen. Biden is the only candidate I've spent more than 5 minutes with. As part of my last stint at Northwestern's Medill Journalism School in the summer of 1996, I covered Washington for the Delaware State News. Delaware is a small state and its congressional delegation is even smaller -- two senators (Biden and Bill Roth, who is now dead) and one congressman (Michael Castle, who is also a former governor of the state, all very incestuous). So in addition to learning a little more than I needed to about chicken farming, I got to know Sen. Biden.
So I wake up today in Turks and Caicos and read about Biden's dead-cat bounce. And the more I read and the more I think about Sen. Biden's singular focus on becoming vice president (and ultimately president), the more I feel that Biden will cost Obama the race.
Why? Two major reasons.
First, he has a ton of baggage. The baggage hasn't come out to date because he wasn't a real contender and he wasn't fully vetted by the press. But it will. This baggage won't be real substantive stuff. But it will be enough to distract people and keep the focus away from Obama.
Second, and most importantly, Obama's pick was a political pick made for political reasons. Problem is ... This goes against everything that Obama has projected to date. He's running as the anti-politician, the new-age politician, the breath-of-fresh-air politician. Obama's choice should have reflected this. He should have picked someone exciting, not a washed up, uber aggressive, Washington insider who has been trying to walk into the front door of the White House for two decades.
Having said all of this, I'm going to do whatever I can to get Obama elected. He's the best of two not-ideal candidates. I like his message. I'm not clear about how he would govern, how he would handle the economy and international relations. But we need new blood in the White House and I can't imagine voting for someone who doesn't even USE a computer.
