Aug. 23, 2008

Biden Selection A Mixed Bag For Obama

Analysis: CBSNews.com’s Vaughn Ververs Says Senator Brings Strength But May Dim Obama’s Allure

  • Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. (seen here with Sen. Barack Obama at the Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa on Dec. 4, 2007) has been selected as the Illinois Senator's running mate.

    Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. (seen here with Sen. Barack Obama at the Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa on Dec. 4, 2007) has been selected as the Illinois Senator's running mate.  (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

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(CBS)  This analysis was written by CBSNews.com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs.


You may remember Delaware Senator Joe Biden from political blockbusters of the past such as, “The Clarence Thomas Hearings,” the “1988 Presidential Campaign,” or “The Clean And The Articulate.” Now he’s back for his greatest role as Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate.

Obama’s decision to select a politician who has served in the United States Senate for 35 years to be his vice presidential running mate shows just how dramatically the political ground has shifted in the two short months since the Illinois senator wrapped up the Democratic nomination based on a message of changing the way politics works in Washington. The “change” candidate has found the need for some “inside the Beltway experience” after all.

A staple on the “short list” of potential running mates for Obama, Biden’s selection is still something of a surprise for a candidate who has built his candidacy on the premise of not only change, but of reshaping the partisan political landscape that has dominated American politics for a generation.

Biden fits the description the candidate has laid out in recent days - ready to be president, willing to push back against the boss and show his independence and in-touch with how most Americans live. At first glance, it’s both a wise and a risky choice.

The senator brings some real strengths to this ticket. He’s one of the most respected foreign policy minds in the Senate, something that was reaffirmed by his quick trip to the nation of Georgia during the recent crisis there. Like his longtime friend John McCain, Biden has a reputation of shooting from the hip - an endearing quality that has also caused him plenty of trouble such as when he called his now-running mate “clean” and “articulate.”

And, like his sudden adversary McCain, Biden also has one of the most compelling life stories of any politician on the national stage. First elected to the Senate at the age of 29, Biden lost his wife and infant daughter in a car accident just weeks afterwards. A relative pauper in a chamber of millionaires, he commutes to his job by train nearly every day, residing in Delaware, not Washington.

In his first bid for president in 1988, Biden was embarrassed out of the race after quoting liberally from a speech by a British politician - and failing to credit. But in his second incarnation as a presidential candidate this time around, he distinguished himself as one of the best debaters on a stage that included not only Obama, but Hillary Clinton as well. Voters in Iowa and elsewhere often mentioned Biden as their favorite candidate but they just felt he didn’t have a chance in a top-heavy field.

However, it may well be the negatives Biden brings that will ultimately determine whether this was a good selection or not. The message that propelled Obama to the nomination was one of change - not incremental change or minor change but fundamental and transcendent change. The old ways of Washington were broken, the candidate insisted, and nothing less than a clean sweep could solve it.

For all his positive personal qualities, Biden is nothing if not a definition of entrenched Washington politics. Throughout his decades in the Senate chamber, Biden has been a primary combatant of some of the ugliest political fights of a generation.

As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he presided over the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork - two episodes which helped set the tone of political recrimination that lasts to this day.

His voting record is filled with hundreds of the kinds of votes which have kept senators out of the Oval Office since John Kennedy was elected in 1960. He voted in favor of authorizing the war in Iraq, something he has said was a mistake but the very thing which Obama used to hammer Hillary Clinton in the primary campaign. And there are few issues on which Republican won’t be able to find some ways to illustrate differences between Obama and his running mate.

It’s a mixed bag of a selection when looking at the pure political calculations as well. Biden fills many needs for Obama. He has the kind of foreign policy chops Obama doesn’t. He’s a Catholic, a crucial constituency in any presidential campaign. He will be a formidable debate opponent for any Republican who goes up against him, and Biden has proven that he’s effective on the attack - just look at his insistence during the primary that Obama was not ready to be president.

He doesn’t necessarily fill any real electoral needs for the ticket, however. Biden may be from blue-collar roots, but with his voting record, it won’t be hard for Republicans to paint him as one more politician in a long line of northeast liberals whom the Democratic Party has trotted out in the past. He often suffers from the kind of verbosity and Senate-speak that sounds like Mandarin Chinese to most voters.

For a candidate who has built up sky-high expectations about new directions for the country, Obama’s decision to select Biden is at the very least an admission that deep experience is a needed component in governing. At the most, it’s a nod to incremental change over the type of wholesale reinvention he has advocated in this campaign. In either case, Joe Biden adds a complicated component to an already historic campaign.

© MMVIII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Add a Comment See all 181 Comments
by borris007-2009 August 24, 2008 5:16 PM EDT
Joe Biden shoots at the hip... definitely will be a detriment to Obama....He''ll irk the Russians, and add more fuel to the fire especially in these viotile Geopolitical times... With Biden in the loop more of the same ***... the US telling other nations what to do.... and most of the world''s populus becoming more disgusted with America... Joe was ignorant with the Serb Bosnia-Kosovo thing, shooting his ignorant mouth... not getting all the facts... What makes this guy capable of taking on VP duties... god help us... I thought Bush was horrible... this guys takes the Cake
Reply to this comment
by broadwayphi August 24, 2008 3:44 PM EDT
Americans are done with GOP pocket-picking.

It has nothing to do with liberal or conservative. It has to do with survival. We can''t afford four more years of Bush.
Reply to this comment
by broadwayphi August 24, 2008 3:43 PM EDT
Americans are done with GOP pocket-picking.

It has nothing to do with liberal or conservative. It has to do with survival. We can''t afford four more years of Bush
Reply to this comment
by brianslc819 August 24, 2008 2:48 PM EDT
When was the consituion changed. I been hraring reports that Obama should not be on the ticket when he was not born in the usa
Reply to this comment
by whitemale08 August 24, 2008 2:15 PM EDT
Like I said,

he could''ve picked Winnie the Pooh and Tiger too and still beat McCain.
Reply to this comment
by whitemale08 August 24, 2008 1:36 PM EDT
Like I said,

he could''ve picked Winnie the Pooh and Tiger too and still beat McCain.
Reply to this comment
by whitemale08 August 24, 2008 1:31 PM EDT
Like I said,

he could''ve picked Winnie the Pooh and Tiger too and still beat McCain.
Reply to this comment
by whitemale08 August 24, 2008 1:29 PM EDT
Like I said,

he could''ve picked Winnie the Pooh and Tiger too and still beat McCain.
Reply to this comment
by whitemale08 August 24, 2008 1:28 PM EDT
Like I said,

he could''ve picked Winnie the Pooh and Tiger too and still beat McCain.
Reply to this comment
by rushliberal August 24, 2008 12:57 PM EDT
Biden Selection A Mixed Bag For Obama


---

Oh - and Cheney wasn''t - as least Obama got to Choose his VP - Cheney Chose himself for Bush. Goes to prove that Obama has brains and Bush has Cheney.
Reply to this comment
by dowjones20k August 24, 2008 12:27 PM EDT
This analysis was nicely done by CBS .. bringing to light several possible hurdles that Obama is now faced with by selecting Biden as his VP ..

Unfortunately, the writer left out the very important fact that Biden was the lead democrat who championed the recent bankruptcy law that has handcuffed citizens. Certainly not a "for the people law".

Maybe it is because Biden is from Delaware and that is where the majority of banks hail from corporate tax law reasons?? ..... and he was pressured with corporate donations????

It is going to be very interesting how the repubs go about attacking Biden .. there is much to expose and utilize to show that Obama''s "change in DC" is evaporating .... lets see if the voters still feel that Obama is going to "change" anything in DC ..

Doubt it .... until Americans vote OUT the two term + incumbants we will never see change ... DC is permeated with ego''s and power brokers who could care less about Americans .. only themselves and their families ...

And where else can you leave your job behind and campaign for years and still draw a $167,000 a year salary??? Only Washington DC ... and not one ordinary American can even fathom such a perk ...
Reply to this comment
by dowjones20k August 24, 2008 12:21 PM EDT
This analysis was nicely done by CBS .. bringing to light several possible hurdles that Obama is now faced with by selecting Biden as his VP ..

Unfortunately, the writer left out the very important fact that Biden was the lead democrat who championed the recent bankruptcy law that has handcuffed citizens. Certainly not a "for the people law".

Maybe it is because Biden is from Delaware and that is where the majority of banks hail from corporate tax law reasons?? ..... and he was pressured with corporate donations????

It is going to be very interesting how the repubs go about attacking Biden .. there is much to expose and utilize to show that Obama''s "change in DC" is evaporating .... lets see if the voters still feel that Obama is going to "change" anything in DC ..

Doubt it .... until Americans vote OUT the two term + incumbants we will never see change ... DC is permeated with ego''s and power brokers who could care less about Americans .. only themselves and their families ...

And where else can you go campaign for years and still draw a $167,000 a year salary??? Only Washington DC ... and not one ordinary American can even fathom such a perk ...
Reply to this comment
by cyndilu9 August 24, 2008 11:48 AM EDT
I think Joe Biden is a great choice. I was a former Hillary supporter - and I''m perfectly pleased with this selection. I think any working class person who votes Republican and John McCain is voting against his/her pocket book and interests. It''s time to wise up. The Democrats have stepped up to the plate an we have a great ticket now. Obama / Biden 2008!! Let''s make it happen Clinton Supporters!!! I''m already on board.
Reply to this comment
by peterrr73 August 24, 2008 8:13 AM EDT
This story claims that Obama has based his candidacy on a call for a ''fundamental and transcendent change''; ''not incremental change or minor change'', but ''a clean sweep'' of the whole Washington system. According to this Year Zero notion, the choice of Biden is a betrayal of this vision.

Sorry, have I missed something? where did Obama ever say this, or anything even remotely like it? And think a little about this. What would such a clean sweep do? are we going to throw out the constitution? the whole machinery of government, the senate and congress and judiciary and all? and start all over?
Actually, my understanding is that Obama proposes just to make the government work better: as he put it today, to be more worthy of the American people. This might be disappointing for Mr Ververs, but is a whole lot more sensible.

But, hey, maybe Mr Ververs has information I do not. Can he could point me out some passages of Obama''s books, or record, which suggests he ever proposed anything like this ''clean sweep''? I''ve read Obama''s books, and heard many of his speeches and interviews, and I was struck by his respect for many aspects of the way the government of this country is arranged: for the decency of many of his colleagues in the Senate, and for the genius of the founding fathers in their arrangment of the constitution. But hey. Mr Ververs writes for CBS. Surely he knows what he is talking about. So, Mr V: where and when did Obama ever argue for this ''clean sweep''?
Reply to this comment
by steinbass56 August 24, 2008 7:54 AM EDT
Why does this article automatically assume that Joe Biden cannot be an agent of change in an Obama administration? Many of the policy proposals on the Biden ''08 website were as progressive as any of the other Democrat candidates were proposing. And to all the Hillary supporters out there who say they cannot support the Obama/Biden ticket because Hillary was ''the next inline'' to be the Democratic nominee, realize that is how the GOP has selected their nominees for over 40 years. Do all of you really want the party of the working/middle class people to become a carbon copy of the party who represent the economic elite in our country? Time to put the ''culture of personality'' away and do what is best for our nation in its entirety. We can''t afford 4 or 8 more years of GOP/Conservative ideology. If all you Hillary supporters who say you will not support the Obama/Biden ticket this fall cannot change your position for yourselves, then do it for your children and their future and the future of our nation.
Reply to this comment
by coryellco August 24, 2008 7:40 AM EDT
for someone who talked down about politics of the past not being good it seems kinda funny bho would pick a dinosaur for vice prez can we say NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME ....why yes we can
Reply to this comment
by coryellco August 24, 2008 7:29 AM EDT
for someone who talked down about politics of the past not being good it seems kinda funny bho would pick a dinosaur for vice prez can we say NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME ....why yes we can
Reply to this comment
by coryellco August 24, 2008 7:26 AM EDT
for someone who talked down about politics of the past not being good it seems kinda funny bho would pick a dinosaur for vice prez can we say NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME ....why yes we can
Reply to this comment
by kesac4650 August 24, 2008 3:59 AM EDT
Obama can only pick from a very few who are willomg to get on the ticket with him.
If elected, Biden will never be heard from again.
But at least he can answer a question, without resoorting to "that''s above my pay grade".
Reply to this comment
by beader59 August 24, 2008 3:27 AM EDT
Oh the list is long. Biden has a temper problem. He has angered memebers on both sides of the Senate aisle. He is a man. He is old Washington. Wait a minute, Obama has promised change and out with old Washington. Lie. Biden lied when he was taped saying he was not the guy for VP just the other day. We are in for so much trouble no matter which party is elected. I don''t understand why the other Democrat who received almost 50% of the American Democrats vote, was not chosen. I don''t care what anyone says, half of the Democrats in America wanted her as our next President. You cannot discount that. She better be given what ever position she wants, or this jerk Obama has proven once again he is out-of-touch with the real America. The real America is black, white, brown, yellow and gay, straight liberal and conservative. We are pro-choice and anti=abortionists and we want politicians who do not lie and flip-flop and who are out of touch with us. Obama and Biden are not those two candidates. This is the first time in my 30 years of voting Democrat that I will not vote for a President of the U.S. It is indeed a very sad day.
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