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Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware's longest-serving Senator, gets the nod as Barack Obama's running mate. (You can breathe a sigh of relief, all of you who threatened to fling yourselves from the Golden Gate Bridge if Clinton was picked.)
More importantly, Biden is a Scorpio and Obama is a Leo. We have no idea what that means. But according to the NYT:
Mr. Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq — Mr. Obama opposed it from the start — Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of President Bush’s policies in Iraq.
And look at what he can do with his hands. Jazzy.
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Sweet. Uncle Tom finally picked a running mate.
You stay classy Zippy.
Hopefully the disaffected, crotchety, white, menopausal females can get past their "one of us" bullshit and find a way in their self-centered hearts to cast a vote for the intelligent, idea-laden Negro boy that Fox News and Karl Rove do not like.
And yes, Biden can do the "hand jive"
GO-OBAMA!!!!!
Obama's Cheney.
Phew! He picked the candidate that is most likely to get the team elected. Hurray! Hillary? Forget it! A black and a woman on the same ticket? That's like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Anyone else deemed "too young" and it would have been bad, too.
On the other hand, is it me, or does Biden bear a frightening resemblance to Bob Barker?
@HHumbert:
Question for you: What makes Biden such a strong team pick?
Sure, he's white, blue-collar and Catholic but he's also known to say stupid stupid things that are going to be gold in an attack ad.
To me, this REEKS of the centrist hoo-hah, that the Gore and Kerry campaigns used to lose their elections.
oh please, Biden is a fine candidate and certainly has experience - the guy got elected to the US Senate at 29!
Besides, who else is Obama going to pick? There aren't enough liberals voting in the US to have an all star super liberal ticket that will magically sweep the US with votes from all the angels in heaven that would theoretically come down from Heaven to vote for such a ticket.
Oh Greg, shush. You just made Baby Jesus cry.
McCain is looking better all the time. Don't like heavy tans, you never know what's hiding under them.
I think a precedent is being set here, for a string of pitbull vice presidents for the foreseeable future. Thanks Rummy, ya old fuk.
oh hey Brock, respects for the fling. *snicker*
Called it.
Again.
@Slappydafrog: Hey, I say shit that gets me into trouble all of the time, and I like myself. He's no Dan Quayle, or even Little Shrub. It makes him seem genuine to me. Despite the fact that he held a national elected office at 29, it leaves me with the impression that he's a real person, not a career pol.
* He's Catholic and yet pro choice? Sign me up.
* He was initially pro-war and then became more educated about it (who hasn't?). The extent that Bush&Co misled their staff, the American people and each other is pretty amazing (see Woodward's first Bush book). These two items leave me with the impression that he's not dogmatic.
* He's an older white man. I wish he was from the South and protestant, but see next bullet point...
* He's not banging his PR agent or whatever.
* He's a moderate democrat, not overly left.
This "Rush to the Middle" isn't just something Obama thought up. It's a pretty tried and proven technique, and it's also not a mathematically surprising phenomenon. You put a Matt Gonzalez sort of guy on Obama's ticket and the general US population will have no stomach for it. Hell, even SF didn't have the stomach for it.
The fact that Biden comes closest to representing my personal political choices (on a macro level) has nothing to do with the fact that I think it's a very smart choice for Obama.
Most of my peers are in the same boat as me: fiscally conservative and socially liberal (voted for Big Bush (the first time) and yet volunteered phone banking and raising money for TARAL).
The Dems have got to win this one. If they don't, I'm moving to Mexico, fuck it.
What is TARAL? I hope you are donating money and phone banking for Obama. I already kicked in the max ($2300) and am going to spend the week before the election in Vegas, campaigning. It looks like this is going to be another election that goes down to the wire.
I think he's a fine choice... the guy's got skills no doubt about it. And yes, realistically, who else would he have chosen?
Unfortunately he's made it easy for the Republican attack monster. They've already started in on how he's undermined his own message for change, diluted his "new Washington" motif, etc etc.
I hate to see them get away with it but after all we've seen, America is nothing if not enchanted by the harsh and dramatic.
I DIDN'T GET MY TEXT! Did anyone else sign up for a text, receive a confirmation, then not get a text last night? I am so mad. Better yet, did anyone actually get a text? Oh Barack, already breaking promises!
Real men don't text! How many women have been asked out by a text? Lazy lazy old men text. Texting is for silly teenagers. This guy needs to stop trying to be cool and making false promises. We are onto him!
uhhh...text messaging is pretty huge for a wide range of ages the world over - except in the U.S.
Then again, we still haven't adopted the metric system, so go figure.
God bless america, and so on...
@HHumbert:
Thanks for your well-reasoned response.
My thinking is based on the sincere belief that the Dems have run incredibly bad campaigns based on "focus groups" and other whatnot.
I mean, how hard could it be to run against the way the country is currently being run? Yet, somehow, the Dems aren't doing it right because Obama and McCain are awfully close together in the polls.
@Slappydafrog: Thanks for your thanks. Your last point... it's scary, huh? I mean, I thought, how could the Dems have lost the last presidential election. I was incredulous.
Which leads me to ...
@NoeValleyJim: Amen. I think I'm going to have to "give until it hurts" this time. Last time, I didn't and look what happened. This is ironic, because my voter reg card says "Republican" :-)
OH, TARAL == the Texas chapter of NARAL.
Biden or no Biden, Obama will tank in November, mark my words. He's following Kerry's pattern of not striking back HARD against smears against him, he's tacking right and "flip flopping" re FISA, offshore drilling, and a woman's right to choose, thus pissing off the left that actually has an IQ higher than 76; the move of "Obama VP watch"and "I'll text message my followers with news of my VP" jibes with the accusations of celebrity that McCain's been throwing at him, along with some sort of techno elitism that the NASCAR fans hate.
John "Kept man" McCain is going to win, nominate hardcore right wing justices to the Supreme Court, rights for gays and women are going straight into the toilet, and we'll have 100 more years in Iraq. Oh, and we won't be able to make our rent.
Kerry's poll numbers were higher than Obama's was at the same point in the election cycle. The fact that McCain is gaining on him is very, very dire news. And quite frankly, tells us a lot about what a bunch of morons this country has become.
I hope I'm wrong, and have to eat my words, but I'll bet I'm not.
Ugh. A papist.
I'll take the Vice Presidency for $1000. Who is.... me!
For what it's worth, I got my text message on Saturday morning (23rd) at 1 a.m.