The difficulty for an Obama-Biden ticket will be leveraging Joe
Biden's assetts without them turning into liabilities. (No, that's
not a dirty joke.) One of the benefits of choosing Biden is that he
is charismatic, funny, and can come across as a normal guy on the
stump -- all problem areas for Obama. But the same
shoot-from-the-hip tendency has produced a long list of Biden
gaffes. Let Biden be a loose canon and the Obama camp will run into
trouble. Rein him in too tightly and you might as well have picked
ultra-boring Kathelen Sebelius.
Another upside to Biden is his Washingotn experience and
foreign-policy cred. But these same qualities can undermine Obama's
change narrative and dull the distinctions on foreign policy. In
his famous 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, Obama said
patriots both supported and opposed the Iraq war. In 2008, that
might not be good enough for some antiwar Dems who see Biden as too
hawkish and conventional. If you let Biden be Biden, you run the
risk of inflaming these tensions. If you soft-pedal his record or
try to push him in a less hawkish direction, you might as well have
picked commander-in-chief Tim Kaine.
topics:
Foreign Policy, Iraq
