Assume by some miracle you’re the next candidate of your party to be President. The time has come to choose your running mate. Would you pick Biden or Palin? I don’t think there’s much Biden controversy, I just figured I should be fair ;).
As a Democrat, I’m still a little disappointed he didn’t go with Richardson. If you’re gonna be historic, go all out. Biden seems kinda bland to me.
Nope. I’d pick neither of them, nor any other politician I can imagine. I’d rather have Bill Gates at my back. Not that I’d want him in office, but he’d be better than a scum-sucking politician.
Ok, maybe that guy from Montana that turned himself blue would make a cool VP.
No. If I were Obama I think I would have gone for the gusto and chosen Hillary. And if I were McCain I think I would have been very unhappy with my choices and eventually would have bitten the bullet and gone for Romney. Neither candidate would have a “soul mate” on the ticket, but neither would be exposed to charges of flakiness, either.
Rumor says that Richardson has a zipper problem.
If I were McCain, I would have gone for the governor of Ct. She’s corruption busting, new, and really fantastic.
If I were Obama… Someone to reassure people that someone will be there who knows how Washington works. Biden is about perfect. People will say, ‘How is Obama going to do this stuff? He’s too new.’ Biden’s the answer.
That’s Jodi Rell, right? I heard her mentioned the other day by a pundit who wondered why she wasn’t chosen, but I think she’s pro-choice.
If I were McCain I would have gone with Olympia Snowe. Sarah Palin, although totally not my cup of political tea, may not be a bad choice for McCain (could’ve done worse) but I think logistically Snowe would have done him a lot better on the electoral map. He’s not going to lose Missouri, Georgia, or Alaska no matter who he picks for Veepslot, yet will not win Colorado or Iowa with Palin whereas might have with Snowe.
As Obama? Perhaps Bill Bradley. Perhaps Bill Richardson. I would not rule out Hillary Clinton but she might. I do not think Biden is a bad pick.
Obama may not have had much going for him in 2004, besides some good positions, an ability to sway crowds with his own words, and a squeaky-clean enough background to not get questioning articles with legs in the National Enquirer, but he has demonstrated in the past four years that those qualities are all still true. Palin is a person who has demonstrated little positive except an ability to read a teleprompter. Her “accomplishments” are few and inflated and do not bear up under any scrutiny.
Joe Biden is a guy with lots to offer but little in the line of “presidential timber.” ETA: He is a Harry Truman, an accomplished politician with not much to recommend him for the national ticket. However, he has more than Palin, who can only claim the timber she arouses in McCain and the right-end of the Republican party. She is a nobody with no claim to the national stage. She is, and I’d say this of such an unaccomplished and scandal-ridden Dem with a good line and a pretty face to toss to the faithful, like John Edwards, an empty skirt/shirt.
Nope. I would have picked Clinton and Romney. I like Romney, and the theater of a Obama/Clinton ticket would have been a lot more entertaining.
Clinton. from a marketing POV they would have had the pigmentation & gender side of the equation locked up.
by not covering the gender base, an opening was given to McCain to regain some initiative. However i think McCain could have picked a better draw for the female vote than Palin. Heck, any moral majority wingnut that gave a fraction of an inch on abortion would probably have greater appeal for those voting on the gender ticket.
I’d probably pick someone like Howard Dean over Biden, but either seems to be competent enough that I’d consider them.
Palin’s support for teaching creationism alone would be enough to ensure I wouldn’t want her as a VP. I disagree with her beliefs, and the positions she derives from those beliefs.
I wouldn’t touch Clinton with a bargepole. Her apparent disdain for economists (read: people who know what they’re talking about) puts her straight into the “dangerous liability” category.
Another vote for Clinton and Romney.
Grumman - I’m not 100% sure about this but I think Howard Dean committed to not running for office anymore after he assumed the chair of the DNC.
I really like Biden although an Obama-Richardson ticket would have made me giddy. I’m sorry to hear that Richardson has a reputation.
AHunter3, my first thought after hearing of Palin’s nomination was of Olympia Snowe. Her reputation is sterling.
I absolutely would not have picked Biden, and I think if Obama loses the election it will be due in part to his awful choice for vice president.
For everyone that says they would have picked Hillary; why would you assume that she would even accept? I think Obama would have loved to put her on the ticket, if she didn’t have so much to lose going from a position of power in the senate to being marginalized in the White House.
I read an Op-Ed today which claimed that Biden’s pick will cost him the Presidency. Not because Biden is a horrible guy, but because the pick showed weakness. Obama needs to be a transcendent figure - someone of supreme confidence and vision. That’s his brand. But by picking Biden, he showed some weakness - he basically said, “I need to get a bit of help here.” He pulled himself back into the cocoon of the Washington power structure, and gave McCain the opening to pick Palin and step outside of Washington. This year, the person most associated with Washington loses.
If Obama had picked Hillary, it would have shown strength and magnanimity. Or he could have gone with another outsider or someone like Tim Kaine, which would have suggested confidence on Obama’s part. But he chose a key moment to make a timid pick, and it’s going to hurt him.
Biden is also a strange choice because he’s always been electoral poison outside of Delaware. This year, he got something like 3% of the vote in the primaries in his own state, and less everywhere else. Biden has a very small constituency, and has never shown an ability to really connect with voters, either Democrat or Republican. He’s like the Walter Mondale of the campaign. Nice guy, knows a lot of stuff, but really, do we have to hang out with him?
Nope. I’d pick Obama.
Republicans and Republican sympathizers keep trying to push the idea that the only acceptable running mate for Obama would have been… Obama: The Next Generation.
Somehow, they expected him to find someone with exactly the same message, but with more experience. As if there is Obama of various vintages in some cellar somewhere and he just needed to find a corkscrew.
… isn’t that what you want in a second banana? A good wingman?
I think both made good choices.
Biden seems like a bad choice only because Palin was a great counterpunch.
However, if Obama chose Hillary then McCain would have chosen someone else that might have been an even better counterpunch.
McCain treated his pick as a purely strategic move, so he had the advantage by picking second.
I think Biden was an excellent choice. Obama has all the razzle-dazzle the ticket needs; Biden brings all the knowledge and experience you’d want and need in an advisor, and a solid presence if the worst should happen. By the time Obama takes office, he will have trained Biden in his policies to the degree that Biden can carry on with them (assuming he chooses to).
Palin is a much riskier choice. A week later, it looks as if it may have been brilliant, but it’s walking a tightrope. Yes, she can definitely fire up the troops, and in the short term bring in a few uncritical new voters, until they realize how perfectly she lines up with George W on her policies (if they’re ever knowledgeable enough to find out or care). But there’s an awful lot of potential scandal there in her background, and we just don’t know how that’s going to play out. McCain is racing against the press; all he needs to do is win the election before the scandals hit the front pages - after that, she can sink like a stone as far as he’s concerned. Hell, he’d point the press at her himself; it would get him Lieberman, confirmed by a Democratic Congress. And the public’s memory isn’t long enough to hold it against him in 2012 (although the Republican Party’s is not - but what are they going to do against a sitting incumbent?). So the jury is still out here. If the press wins, we’ve got an October surprise, and Palin may sink the ticket. If McCain wins, it may or may not be enough to overcome the negatives that the Republicans have this year.
Obama had an impossible choice in some respects. If he picks someone like himself, an outsider for the change message, he’d have been labeled as still being too inexperienced and possibly putting the country in danger if his choice has to step up. If he picks a Biden, he’s just calling the same old “insider” and showing a weakness.
McCain could have done better. A fresh face is good, but make it a face with some weight and not so much wiggly history.