Obama taps Biden to be running mate
VICE PRESIDENT | Obama chooses 65-year-old Delaware senator known for extensive foreign policy
DENVER — At 2 a.m. Chicago time, from a laptop in the “new media” office of Barack Obama’s Michigan Avenue national campaign headquarters, the text message went out: Obama is tapping Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate. “Spread the Word,” the dispatch concluded.
And with that click, Sprint reported a 255 percent increase in traffic on their Obama site this morning.
(AP)
PHOTO GALLERY
Joe Biden
Despite the historic nature of the text-messages to people around the country and the world, news of Obama’s selection of Biden leaked to some mainstream reporters — CNN’s John King got the scoop — a few hours ahead of the announcement.
The freshly-minted Obama-Biden ticket debuts today at the place Obama started his campaign — the Old State Capitol building in Springfield where Abraham Lincoln served.
The creation of a two-senator ticket — the first since John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson 48 years ago — was applauded by Democrats who hope that Biden can help Obama with Catholics and blue-collar voters, and spur turnout in Biden’s native state of Pennsylvania, a key battleground.
Biden’s name had surfaced as a leading contender by Friday, though, and John McCain’s camp was ready for him, releasing a commercial just hours after the announcement that uses Biden’s own words to slam Obama’s inexperience.
“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,” the ad shows Biden saying as he stands next to Obama in a Democratic primary debate.
McCain’s ad juxtaposes that against an old Biden quote about McCain, saying, “I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off.”
Democrats shrugged off the ad, saying Biden, the outspoken chairman of the senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, will help the ticket by being serving the traditional role of attack dog.
“He’s an advocate for Democratic principles. He’s tough-minded on foreign policy and criminal justice. I give him two thumbs up,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.)
And McCain has changed his position on many issues since Biden, 65, offered the kind words about him, Obama backers said.
To counter the expected argument that Obama dilutes his message of change by tapping a decades-long Washington “insider,” Obama spokeswoman Linda Douglass noted Biden’s nightly commute home to Delaware on Amtrak.
“He has decades of experience in Washington, yet, uniquely, he is not of Washington. He goes home to his family in Delaware every single night,” she said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today.
The Obama campaign has already sent out the notice of Biden’s impending travel schedule to stump for Obama. The Obama campaign provides him a turn-key operation headed by former Hillary Clinton campaign manager Patty Solis Doyle, sister of Chicago Ald. Danny Solis (25th).
As Biden’s name emerged late Friday/early Saturday, another fact emerged to rankle supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: Despite Obama’s statement that Clinton would be on “anybody’s shortlist” for vice-president, she apparently never made it onto his. The Obama campaign never formally vetted her for vice-president, Politico.com reported.
But Clinton sent out a gracious statement today, saying, “In naming my colleague and friend Senator Joe Biden to be the Vice Presidential nominee, Senator Obama has continued in the best traditions for the Vice Presidency by selecting an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant. Senator Biden will be a purposeful and dynamic Vice President who will help Senator Obama both win the Presidency and govern this great country.”
CNN reported Biden got the word from Obama Thursday that he was the choice.
Also expected to play a role in Biden’s campaign will be Democratic strategist David Wilhelm, who advised Biden’s 2008 presidential run.
Biden’s role as attack dog becomes all the more important because Obama has discouraged the creation of “527s” — traditionally the third parties that conduct attacks, shielding the candidate from the sting of going negative. Obama had discouraged Democrats from forming these third-party groups, whose message cannot be controlled. Republicans are using 527s, the nickname taken from how they are organized under the IRS.
Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs said on ABC this morning that Biden underscores another important aspect of Obama’s campaign: “He has a record of working across party lines to get things done.”
Biden has expertise on foreign affairs and traveled to the war-torn former Soviet Republic of Georgia last weekend. He also chaired the judiciary committee.