Yes, Biden can put his foot in his mouth.
Biden once gaffed that you have to have a slight indian accent to go into a 7-11 and called Barack Obama "clean and articulate"
But Barack Obama, the first African American nominee for president, chose him anyway.
Remember this moment in the Des Moines Register Debate?
I think this amazing dynamic will minimize the chance that Obama will be undermined by race.
Here is my thinking.
Joe Biden is obviously someone who means well on race. He fought for civil rights. But occasionally, he says something politically incorrect.
I think a lot of white voters who may be suspicious, but still open to supporting, Obama can relate to this. They don't think of themselves as racists and one of the things they fear is being branded as a racist because they may say something that is not entirely politically correct.
The way that McCain plans to get these voters is to play up the meme of reverse racism. They claimed that Obama "played the race card from the bottom of the deck" when he made said that the republicans would portray him as different (which they have been), as not looking like "all those presidents on the dollar bills."
What the McCain people were intimating to (white) voters is that if Obama is elected president, white voters will live in a state of hyper-political-correctness in which anything you say will be interpreted as racist. The McCain campaign wants to stoke white resentment of political correctness in order to get him votes at the polls.
This is why the Biden pick is so brilliant. If Obama can pick as his VP someone who has made racially insensitive comments but clearly has a good heart on these issues, I think that sends a message to many white voters who can relate to Biden on that. I think many white voters want racial progress, they just don't want to be browbeaten about it or crucified if they say something mildly offensive.
Everybody today will be talking about how Joe Biden gives Obama national security cred, working class cred, media cred. They'll be talking about how effective of an attack dog he'll be. On the flip side, they'll be talking about his propensity to make gaffes.
But I would argue that the gaffes on racial matters actually help Obama because it sends a clear signal that you don't have to be 100% perfect and politically correct on race in order to be valued by the first black candidate for president.
Some people specifically argued back when Jim Webb was in the running that Obama should pick him precisely because he had used racial slurs in his youth. Biden gives you a smilar effect, I think with many other strengths and less of Webb's shortcomings.
In this economy and issues environment, I think the only way Obama can lose is to be tripped up by his race and background. I think Obama went a long way to innoculating himself from what the republican attack machine will do by picking Biden, and Obama gets a VP with so many other strengths, both personal and professional.
Barack Obama clearly has the judgement to be preisdent and just showed it today.