HOME / politics: Who's winning, who's losing, and why.

It's Biden Time!Will Obama's new running mate help or hurt the campaign?

By John DickersonPosted Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008, at 9:11 AM ET

(Continued from page 1)

RSS

Picking Biden isn't going to help with the Hillary account, either. Her supporters are wary about Obama. It turns out he never seriously considered Clinton, and now he's picked a man from the mostly male club of the Senate?

And then there's Biden's mouth: the comments about Indians and doughnut shops, the exaggerations and fictions that have dogged Biden throughout his career. Those will be replayed, and there's no doubt that Biden will add to his gaffe track. Gaffes are a challenge because the number of days left in the campaign is shrinking, and any news cycles spent chuckling over something Biden says will be ones stolen from getting out Obama's message.

But the greater challenge may be what Biden says when he's not making a gaffe. Biden, God love him, likes to talk; his conversational style is wonderful and wide-ranging. He speaks in little archipelagos of thoughts. When he says "in conclusion," it often means he's just warming up. It will be like 75 days of fungo practice for his press secretary. He is going to have to listen very closely to every one of Biden's many words, poised to head off any trouble. (In this sense, his job will be similar to that of the press guys for John McCain.)

Biden likes to talk because he has a quick and agile mind and he loves politics. (It may also be the residual product of his childhood stutter.) But it presents a challenge because he may be willing to explore contradictions or seeming contradictions in his boss's positions. He can also be intellectually honest—if for no other reason than the desire to have a good discussion. This is not allowed in campaigns, particularly the Obama campaign, which is careful to a fault.

The upside of the Biden mouth is that it can be very effective. He was often the best on stage in the Democratic debates. He will be able to stay in John McCain's face on foreign-policy debates, which will leave Obama time to talk about the economy, the issue that's likely to turn this election. Biden can also deliver a blow. He walloped Rudy Giuliani during the primaries (see his "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" quote) and could easily fit in to Obama's new, more aggressive strategy.

Biden also knows how to be brief and can get emotional in a way that Obama, thus far, has not (though he is increasingly trying). He drips with the kind of enthusiasm Barack Obama could use a little more of. Yes, there's that clip of him acting like a boob when he tells a voter that he has a higher IQ, but I'll offer another one. During his run, Biden was stopped by a man who had lost his wife. The supposedly pompous blowhard Biden, who lost his own wife and child just after he was elected to the Senate at age 29, spoke to the guy about loss and living with loss in a human way.

Analysis of the vice-presidential choice can be overblown. (Lord knows, the speculation about it was.) On the other hand, George Bush's selection of Dick Cheney is almost a perfect template for what his administration became. It happened in secret and with a lot of hoodwink—many of the other possible contestants were shuttled through the process even though the decision had already been made. Only in retrospect did everyone realize how much Cheney was running the show.

So, in the coming days we'll be able to draw some conclusions about Obama as he describes his thought process and how he came to settle on Biden—that is, if he decides to tell us. The candidate can be stingy about sharing his thoughts. Fortunately, we can now go ask Biden.