Vice-President Biden
So, Senator Joe Biden is Obama's choice for Vice-President. A man who memorably dropped out of a run for the Presidency over 20 years ago for stealing from a speech by... Neil Kinnock. And he has been added to the ticket by Obama to add political weight. Sheesh. Still, at least Obama didn't cave into pressure and go for the Clinton option.
Right now, it is tempting to go for the historical parallels. And just as many look at Obama and see JFK, so you could look at Biden and see LBJ. A respected, capable and experienced Senator added to a ticket to balance a more photogenic but far less experienced Senator. And on some levels, Obama and Biden might want history to repeat itself. After, the JFK/LBJ ticket won. But that is probably where they would like the historical precedents to stop. After all, JFK was gunned down allowing LBJ to become a briefly popular president, before being utterly destroyed and discredited by the Vietnam War.
Of course, Biden also reminds me of someone else - this time a fictional character. Namely, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry in The West Wing - a hugely influential figure in the Democrats chosen to balance the ticket of the far less experienced Matt Santos. Which is hardly surprising, given who Matt Santos was based on. But again, this comparison might not offer Biden a lot of comfort, given the eventual fate of McGarry in the final season...
Labels: Biden, Election 2008 (US), Obama, The West Wing
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 10:54 am
4 Comments
4 Comments:
(yes, cut & pasted from another post, but at least I wrote it originally)
McCain could really do a trick by asking Hilary to be his running mate. I’ve no doubt she is shameless enough, & her happy followers are blind enough, to appreciate that. It would be a real blow to Obama.
Don’t know if that thought has struck anyone else.
Interesting idea.
It would certainly screw Obama over massively. The problem I can see, though, is that McCain is already working hard to win over the right of the Republican party. And if there is one thing that this faction of the Republicans hate more than Obama, it is the Clintons. By putting her on the ticket, McCain would be alienating a large section of his own party.
It would certainly make the election very interesting though...
TNO
Yes, I did consider that soon after writing the original, and for that reason it's unlikely to happen.
I do think Obamamania is very silly: while I'll take him over McCain, I don't like him, and anyone who has great enthusiasm for him is a bit of a tit.
But the Jacobites in exile who still revere Clinton are just fucking mongs. Could they name one policy position of hers that they agree with? Thought not. They'd vote for McCain, even though the hardcore Republicans wouldn't.
I am finding this very reminiscent of Britain in 2005, even though no one else seems to be making these parallels, and I think the hold your nose factor will carry Obama to a narrow victory. As president he would be uncontroversial and his happy followers would just fuck off back into obscurity from whence they should never have come.
A lot of what happens in November is now down to who McCain runs with. If he chooses someone like Huckabee, then Obama should romp home. If he chooses someone more sane, then there could be a real fight for the White House.
Obama isn't the radical of the saviour that he is made out to be. He will disappoint a lot of people, and he is not unlike Blair in 1997. Obama's long term legacy will be a lot of young, naive people becoming cynical about politics.
TNO
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