Fox News and CNN have just reported that they have confirmed that Senator Joe Biden is Senator Obama’s choice to be the Vice Presidential nominee. It is a politically astute choice though not without a few risks. I flirted briefly with Senator Biden as a choice for President and contributed to his campaign before settling on former Senator John Edwards.
Senator Biden is up for re-election in Delaware this cycle. Some states do allow for candidates to run for re-election and the Senate concurrently. Lloyd Bentsen was re-elected to the Senate in Texas in 1988 while also running as Michael Dukasis’s running mate as was Joe Lieberman in 2000 in Connecticut while running as Al Gore’s running mate. I certainly hope that Senator Biden will be able to do so as well as this cycle but I have to check the laws in Delaware. UPDATE: CNN has confirmed that Senator Biden can run for both seats concurrently.
As someone who doesn’t like Senator Obama in the least, this is really a solid choice for Senator Obama politically. While perhaps Senator Biden is not a household name, he is well known having served in the Senate since 1972 and run for President twice in 1988 and in 2008. It shores up Obama’s credentials on foreign policy and on the economy. Biden has working class roots and his Catholic Pennsylanvia background has likely just won the Keystone state for Obama. Pennsylvania is a must win for Obama and the latest poll from Rasmussen Reports only had Obama up five. This selection should widen that lead. For Obama, this is a positive move though also not without some risk.
During the primaries, Senator Biden noted that he didn’t think that Senator Obama has enough experience to be President adding that the “White House was not the place for on-the-job-training”. Biden is also not going to appeal to many on the party’s liberal wing who view him as a moderate or even a conservative especially on law and order issues. Furthermore, Senator Biden voted for the Iraq Authorization Bill that Obama so opposed. Still, Senator Biden has been one of the more out in front figures in either party as to how to unwind the war in Iraq.
Biden’s acerbic wit can cut both ways. Biden can be articulate and funny but he also has a tendency to run at the mouth. Gaffes have undone him in the past. But the Obama campaign will paint this as a “balanced” ticket.
The McCain Campaign Response
“There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing — that Barack Obama is not ready to be President,” said Ben Porritt, a spokesman for Mr. McCain.
My Own Views
Obviously, I am not voting for Senator Obama because Obama himself is the issue for me. I don’t trust him and I am underwhelmed by his experience and frankly disgusted with who he is as a person. He doesn’t share my values nor my world view. My positive views of Senator Biden largely center on the fact that he is a realist in international affairs though I also appreciate his working class attributes. Senator Biden makes a good political Rottweiler. He’s aggressive and articulate yet also homespun. These qualities make Senator Biden a compelling choice by Obama.
That said, as I noted above, the choice is not without some risk politically. Senator Biden had been until early this year very critical of Senator Obama’s readiness to be President. He has since altered his view obviously but those clips will be used against him. Still for Obama, it is not what Biden has said in the past that should worry him but what he has yet to say. Senator Biden may be a good attack dog but attack dogs sometimes do foam at the mouth.
“… My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived. And as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others, and meet the common fate. ” — John Adams, while serving as the Vice President
In the history of the United States eight men have ascended to the Presidency via the death in office of the President. In order, they are John Tyler in 1841 on the death of William Henry Harrison, Millard Fillmore in 1850 on the death of Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson in 1865 after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Chester Arthur in 1881 after the assassination of James Garfield, Theodore Roosevelt in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley, Calvin Coolidge in 1923 after the death of Warren Harding, Harry Truman in 1945 after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1963 after the assassination of John Kennedy.
Here is some background on these ‘accidental’ Presidents.
John Tyler
Dubbed “His Accidency” by his detractors, John Tyler was the first Vice President to be elevated to the office of President by the death of his predecessor. Born in Virginia in 1790, he was raised believing that the Constitution must be strictly construed. He never wavered from this conviction. He attended the College of William and Mary and studied law. More at The White House — John Tyler.
Daniel Webster declined the nomination as Zachary Taylor’s running mate, saying, “I do not choose to be buried until I am really dead.”
Millard Fillmore
Fillmore presided over the Senate during the months of nerve-wracking debates over the Compromise of 1850. He made no public comment on the merits of the compromise proposals, but a few days before President Taylor’s death, he intimated to him that if there should be a tie vote on Henry Clay’s bill, he would vote in favor of it.
Thus the sudden accession of Fillmore to the Presidency in July 1850 brought an abrupt political shift in the administration. Taylor’s Cabinet resigned and President Fillmore at once appointed Daniel Webster to be Secretary of State, thus proclaiming his alliance with the moderate Whigs who favored the Compromise. More at The White House — Millard Fillmore.
“I neither expected it or desired it,” Hamlin wrote to his wife, Ellen. “But it has been made and as a faithful man to the cause, it leaves me no alternative but to accept it.” — Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln’s Vice President. They actually had never met until after the election. And Hamlin left Washington DC soon after his inauguration and spent the balance of the Civil War at his home in Bangor, Maine.
Andrew Johnson
With the Assassination of Lincoln, the Presidency fell upon an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states’ rights views. Although an honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of Presidents. Arrayed against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them. More at The White House — Andrew Johnson.
Chester Arthur
Dignified, tall, and handsome, with clean-shaven chin and side-whiskers, Chester A. Arthur “looked like a President.” He is one of my favourite Presidents, certainly in my top five. During his brief tenure as Vice President, Arthur stood firmly beside Conkling in his patronage struggle against President Garfield. But when Arthur succeeded to the Presidency, he was eager to prove himself above machine politics.
Avoiding old political friends, he became a man of fashion in his garb and associates, and often was seen with the elite of Washington, New York, and Newport. To the indignation of the Stalwart Republicans, the onetime Collector of the Port of New York became, as President, a champion of civil service reform. Public pressure, heightened by the assassination of Garfield, forced an unwieldy Congress to heed the President. Publisher Alexander K. McClure recalled, “No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired … more generally respected.” More at The White House — Chester Arthur. I have also blogged previously on Chester A. Arthur.
Theodore Roosevelt
With the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not quite 43, became the youngest President in the Nation’s history. He brought new excitement and power to the Presidency, as he vigorously led Congress and the American public toward progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy.
He took the view that the President as a “steward of the people” should take whatever action necessary for the public good unless expressly forbidden by law or the Constitution.” I did not usurp power,” he wrote, “but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power.” More at The White House — Theodore Roosevelt.
Calvin Coolidge
At 2:30 on the morning of August 3, 1923, while visiting in Vermont, Calvin Coolidge received word that he was President. By the light of a kerosene lamp, his father, who was a notary public, administered the oath of office as Coolidge placed his hand on the family Bible.
Coolidge was “distinguished for character more than for heroic achievement,” wrote a Democratic admirer, Alfred E. Smith. “His great task was to restore the dignity and prestige of the Presidency when it had reached the lowest ebb in our history … in a time of extravagance and waste….” More at The White House — Calvin Coolidge.
Harry S. Truman
During his few weeks as Vice President, Harry S Truman scarcely saw President Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime problems became Truman’s to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he became President. He told reporters, “I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.” More at The White House — Harry Truman.
Lyndon Baines Johnson
“A Great Society” for the American people and their fellow men elsewhere was the vision of Lyndon B. Johnson. In his first years of office he obtained passage of one of the most extensive legislative programs in the Nation’s history. Maintaining collective security, he carried on the rapidly growing struggle to restrain Communist encroachment in Viet Nam.
In the 1960 campaign, Johnson, as John F. Kennedy’s running mate, was elected Vice President. On November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson was sworn in as President.
First he obtained enactment of the measures President Kennedy had been urging at the time of his death–a new civil rights bill and a tax cut. Next he urged the Nation “to build a great society, a place where the meaning of man’s life matches the marvels of man’s labor.” In 1964, Johnson won the Presidency with 61 percent of the vote and had the widest popular margin in American history–more than 15,000,000 votes.
The Great Society program became Johnson’s agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson’s recommendations. Millions of elderly people found succor through the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act. More at The White House — LBJ.
When asked to name an idea Vice President Richard Nixon had contributed to his administration, President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded, “If you give me a week, I might think of one.”
Then there is the unique case of Gerald R. Ford who ascended to the Presidency upon the resignation of Richard Nixon.
Gerald Ford
When Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office on August 9, 1974, he declared, “I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances…. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.”
It was indeed an unprecedented time. He had been the first Vice President chosen under the terms of the Twenty-fifth Amendment and, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, was succeeding the first President ever to resign. More from The White House — Gerald Ford.
There have been 46 Vice Presidents in the nation’s history. Here are their profiles. In 1988, George Herbert Walker Bush became the first sitting Vice President to be elected President since Martin Van Buren in 1836. In between only former Vice President managed to get elected President. Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, eight years after serving as Eisenhower’s Vice President. The two others who became President after serving as Vice Presidents are John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. More former Governors have won the White House than former Vice Presidents.
Across the anti-Obama blogosphere, one would get the sense that Senator’s Obama is imploding. Such is not the case. He is dipping no doubt but Senator Obama is holding his own in many key battleground states. In Michigan, a state that went both for Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, Obama remains comfortably ahead. His lead in Michigan is largely on the strength of the African-American vote, those under 30 and among first-time voters. In a poll from the Detroit Free Press, Senator Obama enjoys a seven point margin. The main bright spots for McCain in this poll are that a third of the voters in Michigan remain open to changing their views and that outside the Detroit Metro Area the race in Michigan is virtually tied. But even the latter is a problem for McCain. He has to do well outside Detroit to carry the state because he is not going to win the heavily African-American vote in Detroit.
Independents, women and Wayne County voters helped boost Democrat Barack Obama to a 7-point lead over Republican John McCain in the presidential race in Michigan, according to a Detroit Free Press-Local 4 Michigan Poll conducted this week.
Obama’s 46% to 39% statewide advantage is especially aided by a 39-point bulge among voters in Wayne County, including Detroit.
Elsewhere in metro Detroit and outstate, Sens. McCain and Obama are virtually tied, according to the poll of 600 likely voters. Twelve percent are undecided and 3% support third-party candidates.
Obama has significantly more support among voters younger than 35 and an 11-point lead among women statewide. Among men, the two candidates are virtually tied.
The Obama campaign released this ad in response to a gaffe by Senator McCain when he was unable to tell a reporter how many homes he owned in an effort to paint him out of touch. However, the ad is factually incorrect. Senator McCain actually doesn’t own any homes. His wife, an heiress to a beer distributor, owns eight, not seven as stated in the ad, either outright, through a trust, through her corporation or through her daughter. She also has a prenuptial argeement.
The ad caused a stir. It is a 30 second spot and is running in key battleground states. The McCain campaign, of course, responded with this ad:
Who wins? Who cares? I’ll tell you who loses. We do. Frankly, I wish that both Senator Obama and Senator McCain might better spend their time addressing the issue of homelessness in the United States rather than who owns how many homes and who helped whom buy a house.
Something about Barack Obama’s manner bothers Margaret Cowan.
“There’s something egotistical about him,” the Sheridan, Colo., retiree said. “It’s the way he struts around.” Many swing voters here and throughout the country consider the presumptive Democratic nominee distant, pompous, arrogant, even elitist.
“It’s a big issue that he needs to address,” said Eric Davis, a professor emeritus of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. Obama has Ivy League degrees from Columbia and Harvard universities. He’s extraordinarily articulate and exudes self-confidence. Those credentials and qualities combine to strike some people as arrogant.
Here is the Friday, August 22, 2008 edition of what’s making news and interesting reads from around the world.
Russia to Set Up a Buffer Zone Inside Georgia
Russia says it will maintain military checkpoints within Georgian territory for good, despite a promise to complete a partial troop withdrawal by the end of the day. A senior Russian official said they will build a permanent infrastructure in a ‘buffer zone’ close to the disputed breakaway region of South Ossetia. A video report from Euro News.
Syria’s Assad Meets Russia’s Medvedev in Sochi
Moscow has announced it is ready to sell new weapons to Syria, triggering alarm from Israel. More from the BBC and from Haaretz.
Scores Dead in Pakistan Double Bombings
A pair of suicide bombings in Wah, Pakistan left over three score dead outside a munitions factory. The Taliban claimed responsibility. It is the second major attack since Pervez Musharaff resigned as President of Pakistan. More from the New York Times.
In other news from Pakistan, the Pakistani election commission said that lawmakers will vote for Musharaff’s replacement in just over two weeks.
Mass Protests in Indian Kashmir
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims gathered in Indian Kashmir’s main city Friday for the largest protest against Indian rule in two months of turmoil that have roiled the Himalayan region. More from the Associated Press. Also see my post from yesterday on the Crisis in Kashmir.
In other news on India, international talks are due to resume in Vienna to discuss whether to lift a 30-year global ban on the sale of civilian nuclear materials to India. More on this from the BBC.
UK Economy Shows No Growth
The Office for National Statistics revised down its preliminary estimate for Britain’s GDP in the three months to June from 0.2% to zero growth. The figures shocked City analysts who had predicted a dip to 0.1% and was the bleakest reading since the second quarter of 1992. More from the UK Guardian.
Asia Begins to Lose Some of Its Economic Dynamism
Asian economies are losing their vibrant growth as they feel the impact of slowdowns in the United States and Europe. Intra-Asian trade will offer little in the way of an alternative stimulus, while further reforms are overdue, and much needed, in India and China. More from the Asia Times.
