Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. - The "OFFICIAL" Thread - complaints + wohoos

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EDIT: MORDEN WINS THE GOLD MEDAL FOR DISCOVERING THE VP FIRST.  This thread is a parasite on his greatness.

Redirect a lot of Biden chatter here please so that the forum will be able to talk about other issues too!

Edit: Don't forget that Biden will have his son in Iraq.  Gonna be hard to say that HE would rather lose a war than an election.

The evidence has been piling up beyond dispute.  Biden has been assigned a secret service detail, his family has been coalescing to Delaware, etc.  Every other VP candidate has been discredited - Hillary, Kaine, and Bayh.  I saw the Chet Edwards interview this morning, he *absolutely* sounded like someone who did not expect to be picked.  I suspect his name was leaked just to keep some mystery about the process as Kaine and Bayh were crossed off.  Anyway, there is no way that the Obama campaign would choose BIDEN to be the decoy as he is the most likely out of all of the VP contenders to make a slip and ruin his decoy status.  If the Obama campaign wanted to use one of the big three to disguise a secret Gore pick or whatever, they would have used Bayh.

So here is our possible Vice President:


Why did Obama's campaign choose this chap?

Well, I think, when it all comes down to it, a Vice President only really does three things.

1.  Make mistakes or piss people off.
2.  Debate the opposing VP
3.  Act as the #1 surrogate (but still relatively an extremely low surrogate) for the campaign


1.  Make mistakes or piss people off.

Biden is a mixed bag when it comes to this.  He is an extremely experienced campaigner and really suffers from over-talking more than anything else.  Most of his 'gaffes' have been based around showing racial insensitivity, which, if anything, should HELP Obama.  There have been threads about this and I think they raise a good point - can anyone name a non-racial Biden gaffe?  All he has is that "clean and articulate" comment and that Dunkin Donuts comment to that Indian.

Biden's biography offers both assistance and potential to create negative buzz.  He has a long legislative history and there are endless amounts of quotations one can dig out of his books and interviews over the last thirty ears.  His personal biography, however, with his wife and daughter tragically dying, draws sympathy.  It'd be nice if he wasn't from a pseudo-New England state, but as has been pointed out, he is the least wealthy senator.

His character is a mixed bag as well.  On one hand, he is very likable and tends to speak his mind - something that people [used to?] admire McCain for. 

However, there is one issue that Biden performs well in.  Bayh would make liberal activists less enthused and the media would cover their discontent with glee.  Kaine would make swing voters uncomfortable with his inexperience.  Biden represents a compromise of sorts - 95%+ of liberals and swing voters don't have any real problems with his ideology.

Oh, he's Catholic too and has roots in Scranton, PA.

2.  Debate the opposing VP

This is one of the few moments for the VP to shine or damage the ticket.  More famous VP moments have occurred during these few hours of campaigns in history than pretty much everything else VP's have done combined. 

This one of the few areas where most voters will interact with the vice-president and develop permanent perceptions of the vice-president and connect that with the ticket overall. 

Can anyone dispute that Biden is probably the most competent debater out of the VP prospects?

I do not think this debate should be underestimated. 

3.  Act as the #1 surrogate (but still relatively an extremely low surrogate) for the campaign

As I said, he is a seasoned campaigner and is fairly likable.  Biden has done extremely well, just as some random dude senator, at defusing powerful McCain attacks on foreign policy already.  Like the claim that Obama never held a hearing on Afghanistan?  Biden called that bullsh*t and released a paper detailing how these hearings were under his jurisdiction and Obama attended six of those hearings or something.  I remember reading that statement at the time and feeling his stock just went up.

Overall, he will be able to do what he does already - defend Obama on foreign policy affairs on talk shows and the media circuit, but carry a lot more stature and power as he does so.

If the debate focuses on economic matters, I suspect that he will be slightly less powerful.  But with the recent drum up about Georgia and Russia's refusal to obey the ceasefire, it might not be a bad idea to hedge one's bets on the idea that foreign policy issues could continue to be very important in the coming months.


Update:  Also, Biden regrets his vote for the War in Iraq and was a key sponsor of a failed compromise that would have prevented the war from occurring.  So mixed bag on the war.
He also is a "Washington Insider" but he doesn't really sound like one.
Biden also has called Obama unready to be president during debates.

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If the tickets were reversed, there would be  a50/50 chance Biden would get my vote. I truly respect the man’s life story and I think he’d be  a great president, regardless of how much we may disagree. I do believe however, that Obama risks being sort of overshadowed with this pick. Biden knows how to attract attention, and given that he has a multipletimes the amount of experience that Obama has, I think we might see a lot of Democrats and general voters by the end of the campaign wishing the ticket was reversed.

Well, if he draws more attention and it's positive attention, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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How did the story break?  Did Obama officials just decide to start confirming reports to the press at 1 am for no reason?  Do they just not care about the text message surprise anymore now that they have everyone's number?

Or do they really just like to give the breaking news to Larry King?

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How did the story break?  Did Obama officials just decide to start confirming reports to the press at 1 am for no reason?  Do they just not care about the text message surprise anymore now that they have everyone's number?

Or do they really just like to give the breaking news to Larry King?

Biden got a Secret Service detail.

I posted that in my first post on this thread, yo.  I don't think ABC news breaking that tidbit was enough for it to become certain on Drudge, CNN, and so on.

The campaign confirmed it somewhere.

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I think Biden's son Jimmy in Iraq is a big plus too.  Biden can have a big moment in the debate or in his acceptance speak where he boosts his credibility by saying: "NO! We would not rather lose a war than lose an election, because my SON would be dead"

Anyone else think that would be powerful?

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I disagree on it being seen as used for political advantage, I don't think it would be seen that if he sounds like he is talking from the heart.

First of all, it's already a HUGE charge to say someone would rather lose a war than an election, that borders on treason.  I think an emotional, non-overused statement like that would not be seen as cheesy.

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I think Biden's son Jimmy in Iraq is a big plus too.  Biden can have a big moment in the debate or in his acceptance speak where he boosts his credibility by saying: "NO! We would not rather lose a war than lose an election, because my SON would be dead"

Anyone else think that would be powerful?

Uh, it's Beau. 

You're right, I thought he had another son.  I thought I just heard CNN call him Jimmy, eh.

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How did the story break?  Did Obama officials just decide to start confirming reports to the press at 1 am for no reason?  Do they just not care about the text message surprise anymore now that they have everyone's number?

Or do they really just like to give the breaking news to Larry King?

Biden got a Secret Service detail.

I posted that in my first post on this thread, yo.  I don't think ABC news breaking that tidbit was enough for it to become certain on Drudge, CNN, and so on.

The campaign confirmed it somewhere.

Apparently "John King" broke the story at 12:42 am according to Larry King's talking head analyst. 

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In the now-locked "rumors" thread, the giant photo of Biden in the last post reveals a long stray hair on his right sleeve.

Just sayin'.

I can't see it but I am amused by the fact that you scrolled all the way over to the far right of the image to inspect Biden's details, haha.

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In the now-locked "rumors" thread, the giant photo of Biden in the last post reveals a long stray hair on his right sleeve.

Just sayin'.

I can't see it but I am amused by the fact that you scrolled all the way over to the far right of the image to inspect Biden's details, haha.

Nevermind, I see it, I was thinking stage right.

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I'm not going to believe it until we get the text/Email.

Um, Biden's office would have said something by now, it's been almost two hours since every news source in the world is now running Biden as official.  They would have said that the rumors are unsubstantiated (but refuse to confirm/deny) them at the very least.

This isn't the National Enquirer here, this is CNN, Drudge, Politico, MSNBC, FOX, and more combined.

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I didn't get a text

Yeah they decided to go back on their word and release the information to the press first and then text us the next day.

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Fox news confirms, the text messages are going out.

Something tells me that 3 am wasn't the Obama campaign's original plan.  That and Gibb's canceled morning shows makes me think that the Obama camp was in a moment of disarray at the very climax of the VP pick.

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Fox news confirms, the text messages are going out.

Something tells me that 3 am wasn't the Obama campaign's original plan.  That and Gibb's canceled morning shows makes me think that the Obama camp was in a moment of disarray at the very climax of the VP pick.

And why couldn't they send the text message at midnight instead of f-ing 3 am Eastern?

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Dang. Truthfully I wanted almost anyone besides Biden, it is not that I don't like him, I just like alot of the other potential Veeps alot more. Hopefully Biden will prove me wrong and be a big asset to the campaign... instead of a liabilty as a gaffe machine.

Obama went with the "safe good debater" choice, which is probably as good as one can get with a VP selection.

I still think Bayh was a better choice tactically, but it's possible that the little impact he would have (as all VP's have minimal impact) favored a slight depression of his base's support and media coverage about how bland he is and how pissed off Obama's base is over the selection, y'know?

Bayh was viewed as the safer choice of the two but I think Biden is far more safe. 

Despite my reservations over Biden, he might be the best person to minimize problems and increase the ticket's image on the one place where people actually judge the ticket (outside of scandals) - the vice presidential debate.

I'm a little disappointed.

Most of all I'm disappointed with the Obama campaign that is forced to have LARRY KING break the news past midnight on his program instead of Biden smiling with his family in his house in Delaware.  I can't wait for the campaign memoir a decade from now that explains what the heck just happened.  Apparently people are getting text messages now past 3:30 am, I'm still waiting for mine.

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They starated sending the text messages 40 minutes ago to the people on the east coast.  Is there anyone with technical knowledge that knows how long it takes to send an identical text message to a million people through a computer system?

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They starated sending the text messages 40 minutes ago to the people on the east coast.  Is there anyone with technical knowledge that knows how long it takes to send an identical text message to a million people through a computer system?

Apparently alot.

lol your sooo impatient. Calm down...its coming I promise.

I am impatient but I kind of just want to go to sleep without turning off my phone.

I still think the Obama campaign has shown some sort of incompetence with this whole text-message thing.  I seriously cannot believe that they wanted John King to break the news at 12:42 am on CNN and then send out the text messages three hours later.  Again, Gibbs had his scheduled and then canceled appearences.


OMFG I JUST GOT IT 1:03 am!

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They're clearly going East to West... probably would've crashed the system if they sent them all at once.

And of course that makes more sense to try and message the people on the East Coast before 4 am too.

Still, I've lowered my opinion of the Obama campaign, I wonder what happened such that they fell apart at the very height of their suspense.  There is 0% chance that they planned to release the VP this late at night.

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DAMN, the latest Politco article is a little hard-hitting, what do you guys think?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12735.html

Forget the idea that opposition researchers got cracking the very moment that Sen. Barack Obama announced Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate—they’ve long been poring over his records and background, and those of all the most likely vice-presidential picks.

For all that, though, the likeliest attacks in Biden are all matters of public record, and often problems of his own making.

Biden, who dropped out of the 1988 Democratic primary after he was accused of lifting sections of his stump speech about his humble origins from British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock, more recently took heat in 2006, when he said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

This year, he managed to blow up his official announcement he was entering the race when he deemed Obama “the first mainstream African American [candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

Reporters and opposition researchers are already salivating at the verbal grenades yet to be launched.

More substantively, Biden supported the 2002 resolution that authorized the war in Iraq—a resolution that Obama opposed and, in the primaries at least, painted as “the most important foreign-policy decision in a generation.”

Biden was on the wrong side of that thinking, by Obama’s lights. In 2002, he said that America had “no choice but to eliminate” Saddam Hussein.

While preparing for his own run at the party’s nomination last year, he took several shots at Obama’s inexperience, warning that “If the Democrats think we’re going to be able to nominate someone who can win without that person being able to table unimpeachable credentials on national security and foreign policy, I think we’re making a tragic mistake.”

When Obama gave a speech saying he’d send troops into Pakistan if he had actionable intelligence and the Pakistani government was unwilling to act, Biden told NPR that “It’s a well-intentioned notion he has, but it’s a very naïve way of thinking how you’re going to conduct foreign policy,” adding of his then-rival, in a remark Republicans are sure to revive, “Having talking points on foreign policy doesn’t get you there.”

Biden also said last year of his now running mate, that “I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.” He may also see clips from his 1988 presidential run, when he ran an ad in which the narrator warns:

”The White House isn't a place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power... the economic future of the next generation,' the narrator of Biden's 1988 ad for the Democratic nomination said. "The president has got to know the territory.”

Biden, 65, came to Congress at the age of 30, meaning he’s spent more than half his life in the institution, which Republicans will surely charge makes him an unsuitable running mate for a candidate of change.

Another moment likely to be re-used against him is his August 2, 2005 Daily Show appearance where Jon Stewart asked him of a potential 2008 run, “You may end up going against a Senate colleague, perhaps McCain, perhaps Frist?”

Biden replied, “John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off — be well off no matter who...”

First elected to the Senate at the tender age of  29, Biden has now spent more than half his life there, which cuts against Obama’s change message, even as it insulates the first-term Illinois Senator from charges that he’s too green for the White House.

Biden has accepted $5,133,072 in contributions from lawyers and lobbyists since 2003. Obama does not accept contributions from federally registered lobbyists.

And he has one other weakness that hasn't received much attention to date. One of Biden's sons, Hunter, is a registered Washington lobbyist in a year in which Obama has been excoriating lobbyists and the culture of corruption in Washington. The younger Biden is a name partner at the firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, LLP, and seems to have specialized in lobbying for just the kind of earmark spending by Congress that Obama has vowed to slash. Republican insiders say the party is likely to make an issue of Biden's family lobbying ties.

Also expect to hear more about Biden's close ties with credit card companies. His largest contributor (based on total contributions by employees) over the past five years has been MBNA, the Delaware-based bank aquired in 2005 by Bank of America than until then was the world's largest independent credit card issuer and a major supporter of the 2005 bankruptcy bill that Biden crossed the aisle to support.

Top five donors (including employee donations):
MBNA Corp. (Delaware-based bank acquired in 2005 by Bank of America)
Pachulski, Stang et al. (law firm with major Delaware officers)
Young, Conaway et al. (large Delaware law firm)
Law Office of Peter Angelos (mid-Atlantic trial law firm)
Simmons Cooper LLC (national trial law firm)

Top five industry group contributors:
Lawyers/law firms
Real estate
Retired
Securities & investment
Miscellaneous finance

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I like Biden, but I wouldn't have picked him. I wouldn't have picked a Senator, full stop.

Agreed. Especially one who's been a Washington Insider since 1973. If I was Barack Obama, I would have selected someone like Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana with an "outsider" image" to continue Obama's message of real "change".

I agree too.

But Obama's campaiign does not show signs of being a risk-taking group when it comes to grand strategy.  They have, ever since the primaries, tended strongly to play things safe.

Biden, while he caries a lengthy record that includes disses towards Obama, is about as safe and inoffensive of a pick as Obama could get without going for more risky, unknown picks like Chet Edwards.

You can check my posts going back many months and I always said that McCain was the more likely of the two to select an outside-the-box pick.  We'll see if he will stick in the box or not in a week.

I can't fault Obama for choosing Biden.  I think Biden will be great for all of us on the forum since he is more likely to provide theatrics than Bayh or others who would stoicly stick to the message-of-the-day.  Biden might outright call Romney a douchebag or something, hah.  Bayh, my mainstream pick, would not receive one third the coverage on this forum.

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Biden might be an "above average" surrogate in Pennsylvania, but that's all.  Like I said, Biden is an older, more Catholic sort of guy and Pennsylvania is one of the oldest, most Catholic states.

Biden's understanding of economic issues though is a big question mark, is it not?

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