Aside from almost every bit of dialogue being injected with a stilted prescience you just know didn’t exist at the time, my two favorite parts of this excerpt from David Plouffe’s The Audacity to Win both deal with the VP selection:

Later that night, we held a conference call with Obama to brief him on our day. “Well, it sounds like you both are for Biden, but barely,” he said. “I really haven’t settled this yet in my own mind. It’s a coin toss now between Bayh and Biden, but Kaine is still a distinct possibility. I know the experience attack people will make if we pick him. But if that really concerned me, I wouldn’t have run in the first place. My sense is — and you tell me if the research backs this up — that Barack Hussein Obama is change enough for people. 

For Biden–Barely sounds like a good slogan for Biden’s 2016 run. Not as wordy as If Experience Concerned Me I Wouldn’t Have Run in the First Place, not as overcooked as Yes We Can. Also, I don’t know about Plouffe’s pre-election research, but my personal post-election research, for what’s its worth, says, ‘Yessir, plenty change enough, thank yew verry much.” 

…and then there’s this:

The [first] meeting started with Biden launching into a nearly 20-minute monologue that ranged from the strength of our campaign in Iowa (“I literally wouldn’t have run if I knew the steamroller you guys would put together”); to his evolving views of Obama (“I wasn’t sure about him in the beginning of the campaign, but I am now”) [I bet!-ed]; why he didn’t want to be VP (“The last thing I should do is VP; after 36 years of being the top dog, it will be hard to be No. 2”); why he was a good choice (“But I would be a good soldier and could provide real value, domestically and internationally”); and everything else under the sun. Ax and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. It confirmed what we suspected: this dog could not be taught new tricks.

Ha! Nice writing! You can almost feel Plouffe gasping for air as the oxygen is sucked out of the room. Amway lost the best regional manager it never had and we gained a vice president. Good deal? Yet still these envoys of the future president dared not deny the Fifth Nag of the Apocalypse. 

Nobody messes with Joe because no one can get him to shut up.