For Better of Worse
Barack Obama has picked his Vice President running mate and with his selection of Senator Joe Biden the last of the mysteries has been revealed. The pick may also say a lot about Obama. He has picked an older and more experienced person and one who knows his way around the corridors of Congress as well as anyone. It is not unfair to say that Biden could have headed the ticket and Obama could have been his VP. Things simply did not work out that way.
Experience alone is not the only or even the most important criteria for being a successful President. George W Bush was a former Governor and that was supposed to confer executive experience on him. As we have seen none of it rubbed off on George. The Obama Presidential “bet” we are being asked to make, is based upon leadership and personal values. Supporters see a man who can motivate, inspire, and manage in a positive way, others. Obama should be able to bring forward great thoughts from others and get still others to embrace these ideas and put them to work. Biden has shown a level headedness and ability to see the really important things from the many that crowd our world. During the Democratic debates, it was Biden who did not bite at the Iran bait and puff up his chest with a “I will crush them” statement. Rather he said that while Iran was troublesome, the real place for our concerns was Pakistan who already had nuclear weapons, had already shared this know-how in the past, and was a troubled democracy with all sorts of radical groups ready to change the government. This ability to see what is more important than something else is today a rare gift amongst our politicians and media pundits.
Joe Biden does not come 100% without some stains. So far there have been no mention of financial irregularities and his excursion into some of the rhetoric of England’s Neil Kinnock is in the past. Biden is not a “group think” person nor should we expect him to run a second White House like Dick Cheney. All in all, if it could not be Hillary, Biden is a good choice.
This entry was posted on August 24, 2008 at 4:17 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: Joe Biden
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