With the exception of some goofy poll votes and my usual tactless comments, I have for the most part stayed out of the VP frenzy.
It's not because I didn't have my own theories about who the pick would be or what Obama was up to. I stayed out of it for one simple reason:
It's only the vice presidential pick. It doesn't matter.
One of the more amusing idiosyncrasies of a site like this is that every decision and non-decision, move and counter-move, feint and parry over the course of the campaign gets beaten like the bastard offspring of a rented mule and a dead horse. We're worse than pundits, in that way -- the corporate media picks a storyline and sticks to it regardless of the facts (which probably explains why they loved the Bush administration so much, since it governed in the same fashion), while the DK community pounces on every tiny new development and blows it out of all proportion. The site mascot should be the cheezburger kitten with a caption reading, 'I can haz game changer?'
The veep chase has been no exception. The corporate media viewed every possible choice in terms of how it would be bad for Obama. Here at DK, we examined the entrails of every possible choice and saw omens wherever we looked.
Almost no one, here or out in the pundisphere, wanted to admit the truth: that the vast majority of voters will not, and have never, made their decision on who should be president based on who a candidate's sidekick is.
I would have thought the fact that Dan 'Mr. Potatoe Head' Quayle became vice president would have ended the debate on the true impact of a veep choice forever, but apparently not.
Personally, I think Biden will be fine. He'll fill a very specific advisory role in Obama's administration. Maybe he'll lead a legislative charge or two, given how much time Obama has to undo or fix some of the terrible bills passed by the Republicans in the last eight years. And he'll give us some great one liners.
What he won't do is affect the race.
Seriously.
Nobody really cares about this but you and Candy Crowley.
