It's simple, and it's brilliant.  Joe Biden is John McCain.  

Not the John McCain we know, obviously enough: the born-again Bush clone with a special extra helping of anger issues, entitlement, confusion, and sleaze in his past.  But the John McCain low-information voters still believe is there: the guy they saw in 2000, who seemed to be such a straight shooter.  Who talked like a regular guy.  Who wasn't afraid to say something blunt and insensitive, if it also happened to be true.  Who you had the sense you could talk to, if you ever got a chance; who would probably respect you even when you were on opposite sides, who might be wrong but would be wrong with good faith and all the right, honorable motives.  

Yeah, we know that John McCain never existed.  But most voters don't: they don't follow politics closely enough, and the mainstream news organizations can't be counted on to tell them.  Thus, Joe Biden.  It's a stunning example of that old chestnut bit of advice to writers: Show, Don't Tell.

<Crossposted at [redacted] and MyDD>

Good afternoon everyone!

John McCain has made a mistake.  I understand that the conventional wisdom was that if he waited to announce his Vice Presidential pick after the Democratic convention he'd be able to steal their thunder and, perhaps, turn some voters his way.  Folks, that bit of reasoning will turn out to have been incorrect.

It is no surprise that Obama waited until the saturday before the convention to pick Biden. Knowing that their would be a significant but small fraction of angry Hillary voters creating a dip in the polls.  Many on here predicted a negative vp bump if it wasn't Hillary and I think they were right (gallup -2).  Obama's team figures the convention can cover it up and mabye even erase the temporary dissasatisfaction.

Two months is a long time though and I think as long as McCain stays under 48% in likely voter models, Obama can still get a decent victory. McCain will most definetly gain a 2 to 3 point national average lead for 2 weeks following the GOP convention. Im not worried about this negative assessment however.

Here is why Obama will win:

Barack Obama recently chose Senator Joe Biden (Delaware) to be his running mate to boost his presidential campaign .The campaign needed a running mate that could add excitement

On the Tuesday "Musings over Morning Coffee", DemFromCT mused that:

Oh, and don't even go there with a 'woman candidate'. Not only is the GOP  bench weak, the GOP base won't tolerate it.
   

A Republican woman VP could actually hurt McCain. A full 20% responded that they would be LESS likely to support the GOP nominee if he selected a female on the ticket.

But, What-If all the panders by the McCampaign about Obama not picking Hillary are really Leading Somewhere.  First they set up the move by complaining that the Democrats can't live up to their ideals and pick a woman for vice-president. That leads right (pun intended!) to a chance for the Republicans to thumb their collective noses at the Democratic party and say "Look! Look! WE can do what you didn't and nominate a woman for Vice President!"

But who would that be? Not Condoleeza, Kay Bailey, nor Carly, Follow the jump and see.

As we know, the the Internet is not a big truck, but a series of tubes.  And what's in those tubes? Clocks, buddy. Lots and lots of clocks.

The Biden Clock

The Republican National Committee (RNC) launched a new clock today counting the time until Sen. Joe Biden’s next gaffe.

The Iraq Clock

The Republican National Committee started a clock today on its website to track the number of days it has been since Obama has visited Iraq.

Why Won't You Do What We Say Clock

RNC Launches Online Clock Counting Days Since Obama Was Invited To Joint Town Hall Meetings

It's all part of the RNC's most ingenious operation "Operation Clog the Tubes with Clocks So They Stop Giving Obama All That Money."

Unfortunately, the Iraq clock was off by over 900 days until they shut it down. I'd suspect they let John McCain set it, but if that were the case it would have just been blinking "12:00" from the start. Oh well, the RNC knows that data doesn't have to be right to be Right.

And if the clocks aren't enough, they have another scheme: make up so many Obama hate sites, it pushes all the Democratic sites right out the other end of the tube.  There's the "Obama Didn't Pick Hillary" site, the "Obama Facebook Parody" site, the "Obama is a Silly Celebrity" site, the "Obama Loves Rezko" site, the "Obama isn't Ancient Really, Really Experienced" site, the "Obama Audacity Watch" site (and I'm not even kidding about that name), and the "Meet Obama" site. They probably made two more since I started making this list. It's easy enough, since all are copied from the same "Obama is a Scary Muslim Terrorist Loving Arugala Eater" template. Sorry about not providing a link to each site, but anyone actually showing up in these sites might overload the servers, and that would just get smoke in the tubes.

The size of the Republican assault makes it clear that the Internet's days are numbered.  Just try to get to Obama's site, or Orange to Blue and make a donation.  Seriously, try it.

With the diabolical technical skillz of guys like Ted Stevens and John McCain, there's no way we can survive. Please, RNC, don't put up any more clocks or websites! The tubes are almost full.  

I've been thinking about this for several days and also been absorbing the media and GOP fellow traveler responses to naming Biden the running mate. Several things, it seems to me, are being viewed from the wrong Point of View.

In particular, it needs to be noted that a presidential nominee chooses a vice president not to win votes in a region or appeal to demographic groups. Those things might have worked pre-1964, or never worked at all. Either way, they haven't worked in ages.

A president chooses a vice president to indicate how he deals with key appointments, to indicate process but also the quality of individual who will populate his cabinet and key agency heads. In particular, he chooses who could, in a pinch, lead our country under if the president was in any way incapacitated.

The other stuff is chatter, including:

Many of you may have heard that Cindy McCain arrived in Georgia yesterday on some sort of humanitarian/distraction from the Dem convention mission.  On the heels of McCain's inserting himself into the Georgia conflict and overstepping the bounds of a presidential "candidate", apparently the campaign has decided that Cindy too needs to excercise her foreign policy futility.  Im assuming she arrived via private plane since that is the only way to get around Georgia after all.  But now that she is there, where are the throngs of McCain fans, aka the MSM, with the reporting?

In this diary, I will take us back a decade (almost to the week, in fact). To show just how good Joe Biden is with foreign issues. Perhaps the biggest foreign issue of our time. A Saudi millionaire by the name of Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin.

More, below the fold...

Here is McCain's latest attack on Obama...

If he doesn't pick either Huckabee or Romney now, he would come off as the world's biggest hypocrite and we can scour him endlessly by making an identical ad featuring Romney. Romney afterall actually won more votes than McCain for the first half of the Primaries and came within a hair's length of beating him.

Romney made some pretty damning statements about McCain's ignorance of economic matters. Huckabee made some damning statements about how out of touch and ignorant McCain and the Republicans were and how real people are suffering under the weak economy. If he doesn't pick them to cover up these very real weakness, he's opening himself up to a barrage of attacks.

Koers, please, for the love of god, don't attack Romney and Huckabee now. Wait until either one is the pick. File away the attacks for later. Be patient, or risk not having Romney be the pick.

I waited a couple days to post this so the discussions about 'is Biden right' and 'what does it mean' and so forth could take place before bringing a little different question. I personally don't have as much interest in who the VP nominee is as what the choice says about the presidential nominee.

Specifically, I'm curious what the key career accomplishments section means on Obama's website.

This is not enough for a diary but I can't help myself.  Caroline Kennedy just smacked down Wolfe Blitzer on CNN...He was questioning her about the "non vetting" of Hillary and she said "You sure know a lot about this don't you?"..WOlfe:  "Well walk us thru it"... Caroline "I'm not walking you through anything..this was a confidential process"..

WHOOSH...THREE POINTER...nuff said...

Talk amongst yourselves...If I knew how to grab the video and post I would be not that skilled...GO OBAMA-BIDEN.

UPDATE:  If anyone can find the video of this from CNN I would greatly appreciate it!  

Musings From The Delaware Farm!!! We Grow Corn and Soybeans and Bidens!!! And Pumpkins!!! I was born in NYC; this is all new to me here!!!

I think one of the most intriguing questions still left unanswered is whether McCain will pick someone left of him or right of him.

Most of the stronger candidates are left of him -- Christine Todd Whitman, Olympia Snowe, Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman, Rudy Giuliani, Jodi Rell, Kay Bailey Hutchison -- but they will all, to varying degrees, be an affront to the stern unforgiving Republican base.

Choosing one of the right-of-McCain candidates -- notably Huckabee and Rick Perry of Texas -- would likely result in kissing the Independents and moderate Republicans good-bye.  McCain is already pushing himself off-center on numerous issues, so picking someone to the right will irretrievably tilt the whole ticket that direction.

I just got a sneak peek at the ledes for an upcoming piece analyzing Ron Fournier's analysis of John McCain's vice presidential choice.

John McCain showed great courage and confidence yesterday in choosing Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate.  Once again Sen. McCain demonstrates his record of bucking his party and making a choice that reflects his independent nature.

Just a quick idea for an ad on McCain's inability to lead.

Few things are more laughable than Republicans pontificating about vice presidential picks, maybe because their own bench is so weak. On Saturday John McCain strongly praised Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden, describing it as "wise". Meanwhile McCain was releasing an attack ad demanding to know why Obama hadn't chosen Hillary Clinton instead. Which leads me quickly to my thesis: These Republicans are goofballs.

Case in point is Tim Pawlenty. After reciting the threadbare GOP talking points about how disappointed they all are by Obama's selection of Biden, Pawlenty topped the list off with this ornament to stupidity (h/t Matt at Think Progress):

Pawlenty said he believed Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, would have been a better choice for Obama. "He's an outstanding leader and somebody who would better represent the mainstream of the country," Pawlenty said.

In other words, to hell with military regulations that prohibit active duty officers from campaigning for or holding partisan political office. To hell as well with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who wrote an open letter this spring reiterating the policy that "the U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways".

Pawlenty's call to politicize the military did not just come out of the blue, however. Republicans have been gibbering for the last year about wanting to nominate Gen. Petraeus for high office. This spring McCain was forced to apologize after he used Petraeus' photo in a fundraising letter. But even then McCain's campaign still wasn't finished dragging Petraeus into the presidential race. Just last week we learned:

People close to the [McCain] campaign also floated a wild-card choice, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq. They said it was not beyond the realm of possibility that Mr. McCain would ask him to join the ticket, although General Petraeus has no experience in elective government and has said repeatedly that he is not interested in the vice presidency.

One adviser characterized General Petraeus, who presided over a recent reduction of violence in Iraq, as more of a wish-list candidate for Mr. McCain, who, like the general, long supported sending additional troops to quell the insurgency. The adviser said the campaign was putting forth his name in part in a bid for attention at a time when Senator Barack Obama’s choice of running mate, which is to be announced in the next few days, was dominating the media.

In other words, the demands of the news cycle practically require Republicans to politicize the military. For the GOP an Army general is just a pawn in political game-playing. No wonder poor Tim Pawlenty figured that it made just as much sense to insert Gen. Petraeus into contention on the Democratic side of things as well. There was no sense to begin with, so what difference did it make?

Setting aside the damage being done to the military by the Republicans' creepy stalking of Petraeus, it also looks pretty foolish politically:

• Politicizing the military is one of the surest ways of demonstrating that a McCain presidency would mean a continuation of George Bush's policies.
• McCain claims he's expert in foreign and military affairs, especially Iraq. His campaign also insists that Obama chose Biden to fill in a gap in such expertise. By that logic, doesn't McCain's continued obsession with Petraeus suggest that he's lacking in the very expertise his campaign is based upon?
• Republicans have acted for two years as if all hopes for success in Iraq depend upon the military genius of this one man. To hear John McCain talk, Gen. Petraeus is practically the reincarnation of Alexander the Great. Now it turns out that he's not essential to victory after all, and his time can be put to better use back in the US on the campaign trail.
• For months the Republican rallying cry has been that Obama has too little experience in Washington. But hark, David Petraeus is at hand. Who ever said anything about the need for political experience, anyhow?

Even with several months' time to prepare some VP talking points, McCain's campaign still can't turn out anything coherent.

I just saw a friends status update on Facebook and almost fell out of my chair.

"Going to stop by Western Union during lunch to see if the telegram from the McCain campaign announcing his VP has arrived"

Well that's about how it goes. I kicked around the idea that it was coming via snail mail to all his top donor supporters first. Or perhaps he is tapping it out in Morse Code. Even the pony express with a horse getting lost with the mail would have been faster.