obama/biden ’08, part deux
By Ryan Byrd
i haven’t really been too shy about stating the fact that i am eagerly anticipating 8 years of a barack obama presidency. i won’t go into all the reasons now (although i’ve been meaning to write a blog stating my reasons), but i thought i would give a little commentary (as promised) about obama’s vice presidential announcement.
quite frankly, i’ve not been too thrilled by the names swirling around in regards to potential running mates. obama elicits passion and hope and a charisma that we haven’t seen in a candidate in a long while, and all the names being thrown around just didn’t seem to match to me. honestly, i was 100% against hillary clinton as a running mate. i really believe that she represents everything that obama isn’t: old washington, politics as usual, whatever-it-takes mentality (in a negative way) and collusive political scheming. as far as evan bayh and tim kaine, i have nothing against those guys, but they just didn’t elicit any kind of positive response for me.
from early on in the democratic primary race, though, joe biden always had a spark that made the race interesting. so, when the announcement was made by obama leaked by “democratic sources,” i was very pleased. i thought i would simply enumerate some of the reasons i like this choice.
- joe biden wasn’t chosen for cheap, political reasons (or as much as we can escape given the nature of politics). one of the things i get really sick of when watching pundits and political coverage is the assumption that a presidential candidate will pick a running mate based on being able to win a state that they might not otherwise be able to win. it isn’t like delaware (biden’s home state) is some big swing state that obama is concerned with. bayh, kaine and clinton, for that matter, would have racked in a lot of votes. i’m not naive enough to think that those things aren’t a concern, but it wasn’t, it seems, the primary concern for obama. he chosen biden because he will actually make a good, effective vice president.
- as previously stated, joe biden will make a legitimately good vice president. he isn’t just a vote-winner. he isn’t pretty. he isn’t particularly articulate and he isn’t just a puppet. he will step in a do a good job.
- obama and biden are like a good married couple: they compliment each others’ strengths and fill in for the others’ weaknesses. if obama is weak in foreign affairs, it doesn’t get much stronger than biden. if biden is weak on communicating and articulating his vision, obama is the consummate communicator. these guys just fit.
- biden is an expert on foreign affairs (chairman, senate foreign affairs committee) and brings a global perspective that no other candidate offers. it goes without saying that we desperately need this in our country right now. biden can deliver in this area.
- finally, and this is the fun one, biden is hilarious. he offers sound bites like no one else. now, what comes with this is some major foot-in-mouth moments (anyone remember the obama articulate comment…??), but they’re great. seriously, what this really means is that biden is unfiltered, but in the good way. i have no doubt that when joe biden says something, he truly means it and isn’t just offering the politically correct answer. in the debates, you could always count on biden to offer a humorous moment, but it was humorous in the sense that it offered an uncensored piece of truth. probably the best moment of all the democratic primary debates was this.
so, here we go. one step closer to november and a new era in washington.
