(crossposted and adapted from gerrycanavan.blogspot.com)
I felt pretty luekwarm last night when the announcement came. I didn't think Biden (D-MBNA) was an interesting enough choice to justify the anticipation that has been built, and he doesn't do what Kaine or Warner might have done for us in a major swing state. And Ambinder's list of pros and cons hits a whole lot of big negatives:
Some liberals think he's a bully who got the Iraq war wrong (although Biden did try to pass a less bellicose resolution.) . But I suspect that the general response from Democrats will be "Great choice."
The criticism will focus on Biden's 1987 plagiarism bout, his support of credit card companies (he pushed the bankruptcy bill that Dems now hate), his comments about Obama, his racial obliviousness (the comment about Indian-Americans in 7/11).
Yeah, that about covers it.
But the longer I live with the choice the more I feel this is a brilliant sort of veepstakes jujitsu. A lot of people are missing why. First, it should be said this so-called "racial obliviousness" is actually a pretty strong positive in this context. The Biden choice in this respect is Obama ceremoniously returning the race card to the deck; it's a not-even-coded reassurance to white Americans that Obama isn't going to get hung up on race.
And Biden's a pitbull, too, which will be nice for a change. His reputation for logorrhea isn't a drawback here, it's actually a plus here as well—nobody will blame Obama when Biden inevitably runs his mouth off and blasts McCain, because everybody knows that's just what Biden does.
Biden's reputation as a loose cannon is exactly the cover Obama needs to tell the truth about McCain. He's the perfect surrogate for "a new kind of politician," because he can be allowed to go "off-message" without diminishing the Obama brand.
And Biden is quite deliberately a choice to keep the question of 2012/2016 at bay, which should make a lot of people happy for a lot of different reasons. Biden won't run for president to succeed Barack, because by then he'll be about as old as John McCain is now. Which is too old.
So while on balance I still would have preferred somebody else, it's actually a pretty strong choice. Ride past any initial disappointment and maybe you'll see that this works...