Of course I didn’t watch this speech live, I reveled instead at the ease at which by midnight I read the transcript of Hillary Clinton’s speech, and this morning I got to watch the speech on youtube. The Internet has changed political coverage permanently.

Green collar jobs? It’s still refreshing that Hillary managed to introduce a new campaign issue in speech that was largely about why she ran for president. Sisterhood of the travelling pantsuits was pretty funny too.

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It was not even a toss up. NFL preseason game, or the Democratic National Convention. But some of you may be watching ….

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Today’s local papers do the pro forma article on what local Dems think of Obama’s VP choice of Joe Biden. I like Biden, I had him ranked in my top three Democratic picks in fantasy presidential football. Biden has a real track record on foreign policy that fits within the pragmatist framework that doesn’t rely on hope. Here’s Biden in early 2007:

Joe Biden said about Cheney; “every single person out there that is of any consequence knows the vice president doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Biden went on to say:

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Down there in the comments a coupla posts back (entitled Democratic VP Watch), our most prolific commenter - Anonymous - offers an analysis of the status quo.

First, we have a candidate - Obama - with virtually NO experience working in or with government. Then we have his pick of an extremely experienced VP running mate.
You know what this sounds like to me? This sounds like a COMPLETE REPEAT of the BUSH presidency!
Biden is Cheney and Obama is Bush …!

I can see the analogy, but it really doesn’t apply.

Bush was a scion of the Republican Party - not just because of his father’s stature and position - it goes way back. He’s a child of privilege. His father made his own fortune in the oil business, but both sides of his forebears were accomplished and wealthy and powerful. Bush’s grandfather was a Senator from Connecticut (back when Connecticut was bedrock Republican territory).

However, George W. was never considered to be a serious guy, and when he wasn’t adrift and completely irrelevant, he was failing. The fair-haired boy in the Bush family was not George W, it was Jeb; a natural born leader who was tearing it up in a swing state with a strong-executive government and a lot of electoral votes.

Along comes Karl Rove and a pretty specific set of circumstances. Rove gets George W installed in the (nearly honorary) position of Governor of Texas and then, along with the group of senior Republican advisers (collectively know as the Vulcans), a whole lot of money, and some other key players from Bush 41’s Administration, manufactures a candidate. The single key “adviser” to George W in his Vice Presidential “vetting” process was one Dick Cheney.

Obama came out of nowhere, successfully took on the principal power structure of the Democratic Party, and won. He appointed a small staff to vet potential VP candidates and, unlike George W, was very candid about what he saw as the important attributes he sought in his Vice Presidential nominee, and how he saw the nominee’s role in the new Administration. Obama chose an individual he had defeated in the primary phase, not someone he was dependent upon. Obama chose an individual who was not his father’s man but, if anything, a bit too much his own man.

Cheney’s influence, particularly during the first Dubya Administration, has been (to be diplomatic) historic, with disastrous consequences for the economy and national security. There is nothing to suggest that Obama is so beholden to Biden. Only that Obama has the self-knowledge and self-esteem to recognize what will best serve the country, and the self-confidence and maturity to exercise his own judgment and to choose a man with superior knowledge and experience to stand with him in the most important election in decades.

Finally, Bush has done grievous harm to the GOP. George W. was a cion that didn’t really take. Time will tell but, so far, Obama has all the makings of contributing his own unique attributes to the rejuvenation of a premier cru.

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Washington Week did their weekly Friday night thing in front of a live audience in Denver tonight, and a main topic was the breathless anticipation of who will ride shotgun to Obama and McCain. Obama gets some buzz for, well, creating good buzz - by keeping the decision air-tight and announcing it (when he does) via text messaging. This means that if you are signed up for it (I went to see how, but it wasn’t obvious so I gave up), you will know at the same moment as the gaggle trailing Obama himself.

This is actually kinda cool, and does convey what it intends, that this campaign is taking some new ground, is a more with-it, up to speed operation than campaigns normally are and this is a contrast with McCain’s campaign.

Politico just released an AP report that one of the short-listers is out of the running:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A Democratic official close to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine says Barack Obama has told Kaine that he’s not his choice to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Not a surprise, both because Virginia has a two-term limited Governorship, and former Virginia Governor Mark Warner has a major speaking role in Denver next week.

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Further proof that we are indeed a purple nation, a WSJ NBC poll on the whims of Hillary supporters:

The Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll out Wednesday night shows that 52 percent of Clinton supporters said they will vote for Obama. Twenty-one percent favor Republican Sen. John McCain, while 27 percent are undecided or say they will vote for “someone else.”

Count me in the 27 percent grouping. And, no, if somehow Hillary was Obama’s VP pick that would not change my undecided  grouping. The only thing that is currently influencing my thoughts on presidential politics is the impact of whoever becomes president will have on future supreme court judge nominations.

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The anti-Lieberman forces will be out in pillorying Lieberman for speaking at the GOP convention. Lest we forget good old Zell Miller in 2004. Ultimately these national political conventions have lost their meaning. Both parties have worked their way into corners where the nominee isn’t decided anymore by a floor vote of arm twisting and old fashion wrangling. Candidates aren’t candid. Balloons will be red, white and blue, and the television talking heads will breathlessly report who ate what for breakfast– as a new form of polling data.

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It’s somewhat a sad testament to the world’s leading Democracy that there’s a profit to be made in registering people to vote. Which is why nonprofit groups like ACORN run into trouble. ACORN although itself a nonprofit, hires people to register new voters in primarily low income areas. They pay low income people per person registered, which is where the profit part comes in. It is personally profitable to just make stuff up. Which is how ACORN found itself in voter registration scandals across the country.

Seattle

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Maureen Dowd writes a mean upper middle-brow psychological critique.

Now John McCain is pea-green with envy… The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton, childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious, too popular and not patriotic enough.

Even his own mother, the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain, let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was “kinda stupid.”

And while you can be forgiven for taking Paris Hilton lightly, you’re taking your chances if you irritate her mom. Something like this could happen:

“Thanks for the endorsement, white haired dude…
I’ll see you at the debates, bitches.”

Blacklash, much?

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A reader suggsted this jib jab clip.

http://www.jibjab.com/originals/time_for_some_campaignin

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