Barack Obama‘s campaign announced to the world at 2:00 in the morning, and by text message, that Senator Joe Biden is Obama’s pick for Vice-President. It was a great choice.
Joe Biden offers the best possible defense for John McCain and the Republican’s patriarchal (and patronizing) “Son, let me tell you how the world really is” offense. Biden can go toe-to-toe with any living American on the subject of foreign policy.
But even more important for the Obama campaign than national security, Joe Biden brings a sense of security to the millions of older, white voters who still aren’t sure about Obama. In that sense the selection of Biden is not unlike George W. Bush‘s selection of Dick Cheney. Biden, like Cheney, won’t deliver any large, electoral-rich states, but he does reassure Americans who are worried about Obama’s lack of years in national politics that there will be someone in the White House who has been around a long time, who does know how Washington and the world works (that unfortunately did not actually work out to be the case in Cheney’s instance, but it did get them elected — twice). Biden fills the old white guy requirement to a tee.
Biden also fills another role, much needed in the Obama camp: that of “the attacker”. Biden can answer the McCain national defense attacks like no one else. Biden can exploit, in a way that the Obama campaign has not yet, McCain’s huge weakness, which is his continuing support of the unpopular Iraq War.
So Obama-Biden it is. It’s going to make for a great convention next week in Denver. Be sure to keep with PubDef.net all week long as we report LIVE from the Democratic National Convention as only we can.
