More on the “Pick”

So far the press coverage has been pretty generous regarding Senator Obama’s selection of Joe Biden. That’s to be expected. But the MSM consensus seems to be that this was a “safe” pick. I’m not sure I see it that way. He’s safe in the sense that he’s not going to have a John Edwards-sized skeleton in his closet, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of anger in the liberal blogosphere. Safe would have been Chet Edwards. Why? Because nobody much knows who that is. Or Clinton or Richardson or Kaine – though some would have been disappointed with those choices, all of those could have been easily explained out of political necessity.

This pick seems to garner so much disapproval precisely because it seems not to have been driven by politics. In short, I think there isn’t much of an argument that Biden helps in the election. Yes, he wins you Scranton. And not to diss Dunder-Mifflin, but is this really the best you could hope for? At least New Mexico gets electoral college votes. Scranton, not so much (unless you buy the whole, “As Scranton goes, so goes the nation” thing.

No, the anger with the pick is that it seems like Obama thinks this is the best person for the job. Now, at least it wasn’t Evan Bayh. So the core BarackStars don’t have to face the possibility that their guy would sell his soul (by nominating a neo-con) to win the election. But this is the next worse thing. They’re spending tonight wondering about his commitment to their cause.

So, running it down on the eve of the convention:

Fans of Senator Clinton are livid because she was NEVER an option (which should make the roll call vote at the convention all the more interesting). And, as my friend and colleague Patrick Murphy noted, if the goal was to win back the millions of Clinton voters expressing continued concern with an Obama ticket, selecting a guy who was widely credited with failing to support Anita Hill and by extension allowing Clarence Thomas to be confirmed in the face of evidence of sexual harassment that the Senate failed to take seriously is especially egregious.

And there are the usual disappointments that someone from the southwest or midwest or (what do we call Kansas… “plains”?) wasn’t selected. But they’ll get over it.

But in addition to that, it seems to me that a lot of Obama’s core supporters are flummoxed. Why? Because they were desperate to buy into the “change we can believe in” message and the first meaningful act of their candidate was to undermine the message, and frankly, the entire raison d’etra of the candidacy. It is akin to Senator McCain selecting a draft-dodger (just wait… a couple are on the short list) or someone who refuses to wear the flag pin (though McCain sometimes forgets his, probably leaving it on the nightstand in one of his houses). It just doesn’t make sense.

Now, most people I know have an awful lot of nice things to say about Biden. And I tend to think he’ll be a good VP. He’ll be a team player, he knows D.C., he can work with Congress, and he knows his way around the foreign policy bureaucracy. He’ll be a respectful partner and not someone angling for the job (Biden would be 73 at the conclusion of two terms). So he’s a Cheney pick. A company guy. A governance guy.

But that doesn’t at all satisfy the Obama true believers. They feel betrayed. Biden didn’t just vote for the war, he shepherded the resolution through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He doesn’t just make the occasional verbal gaffe, he makes repeatedly tone deaf comments – like implying that Iowa schools are better than DC ones due to their racial composition or that he could compete in the south because Delaware was a “slave state”, let alone the other more widely dissected comments intended to be in praise of Obama.

While Senator Obama gave probably the most nuanced speech on racial politics I have heard from a candidate for elective office, he was also the guy who had his Sister Souljah moment in his June speech assailing absent Black fathers (aka the Cosby speech). So for him to select a guy who seems incapable of talking about race doesn’t appeal to those under 30 or those who were starting to wonder if their candidate was drifting to the middle or really there all along.

So on the eve of the convention, the supporters of the vanquished rival are unhappy and the core of the nominee’s supporters don’t know if “change” is more than a slogan. Doesn’t sound “safe” to me.

But is sure sounds like this Convention will be interesting. More to follow… tomorrow a run-down on what the Dems. need to achieve at their convention.