Political Theater and Light of Day

After a nauseating, if occasionally intriguing, endless Presidential campaign we are finally getting down to the heart of the matter.  Finally we are seeing the outlines of the final conflict which will determine the direction of the country for at least the next four years – and with the probability of a few Supreme Court replacements, likely for a generation. 

Senator Obama has had a tough month.  He seems to have failed several tests and his judgment seems to be lacking in the view of some commentators.  He has shown that he can recognize a problem and try to solve it, but may have shown that he is not able to make the tough decision.

Senator Obama’s decision to select six term Senator Joe Biden of Delaware was a matter of pure political calculation and not a decision made from a position of strength.  The pundits have suggested that Senator Biden was the choice forced by Vladimir Putin in far away former Soviet Georgia.  Certainly the events in the Caucasus mountain region remind us that the world is a complex and hostile place and foreign affairs is a necessary and important part of the presidency.

But Obama also recognized that he is in trouble.  He needed to add a person to the ticket who would address constituencies that he is lacking and bring stability to the personality of the ticket.  In a sense, he has been successful.  Few would argue that Senator Biden is not qualified to be President (far fewer than say that about Senator Obama).  He is a Catholic, whose personal life reflects the elusive family values we hear so much about.  He is direct and plain spoken in a way that will appeal to blue collar workers in the rust belt of the North East.  He has many years experience on the foreign relations committee of the Senate.  He has a Democrat governor who can appoint his successor with another “D”.

But there is a price.  Senator Biden’s strengths highlight the weaknesses at the top of the ticket.  He also voted for the war in Iraq (although he later opposed the surge policy) – making continued attacks of McCain for his judgment more difficult.  And most important of all… he is not Hillary.  Obama has selected the former primary candidate who amassed mere thousands of votes and rejected (rudely it turns out) the former candidate who won the hearts and votes of millions of Democrats in the primaries. 

Senator McCain will face the same challenges in his choice next week. Governor and Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge from critical state Pennsylvania and Joe Lieberman, possible cross the aisle “Hail Mary pass” dramatic pick, are pro-choice – unsettling to the Republican base.  The attractive rising stars of the Republican party such as Governors Jindal (LA) or Palin (AK) are not quite ready for prime time for age and inexperience (and making further attacks on Obama’s youth and inexperience more difficult) – but watch for them in four years.  McCain’s version of Joe Biden would be Mitt Romney – good business resume, possible influence in the critical state of Michigan but who achieved no traction as a primary candidate despite an unlimited budget and who has unquantified baggage from his Mormon faith.  McCain is closely advised by two women who have strong business backgrounds, but minimal political experience – Carly Fiorina, former Chairman of Hewlett-Packard and Meg Whitman former CEO (current director) of EBay.

My advice for Senator McCain ? I though you would never ask… his safe pick – Southern moderate governor Mike Huckabee who scored second place in a crowded field in the primaries with no money and only a smile and an affable charm with strong extemporaneous speaking skills reminiscent of President Clinton.  If he wants to court the independent and moderate Democrat women who don’t find a place without Hillary – Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas would be my pick.  Hutchinson is not without controversy, surviving a uniquely Texas scandal in 1993 and being pro-life but not advocating overturn of Roe v Wade.  She also receives significant funding from the oil industry and does not score well with environmentalists.  But she is a strong, experienced conservative Senator and a tough campaigner.  Not a large field to choose from if you want a woman on the ticket. 

For both Senator Obama and Senator McCain, all of the potential VP prospects have baggage and inconsistencies with the main message of the respective campaigns.  But for the winner, difficult decisions will be the norm for the next four to eight years.

Rich Lowry is guest column today.  Writing for Townhall.com, Rich talks about the impact of Senator Biden on the Obama Express.  Rich is the author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years. 

My source:

http://townhall.com/columnists/RichLowry/2008/08/25/introducing_barack_obama,_cleareyed_pragmatist

Monday, August 25, 2008
Introducing Barack Obama, 'Cleareyed Pragmatist'
by Rich Lowry

Barack Obama has denigrated Washington experience, pooh-poohed traditional foreign-policy credentials and rued negative tit-for-tat exchanges in campaigns -- in fact, these things were close to the core of Obama's message during the past year. Note the past tense.

When it came time to choose a running mate, Obama went with a senator who has been in Washington for 35 years, who earned his foreign-policy chops in years of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings and Council on Foreign Relations meetings, and who is known for rhetorical belligerency. Plus, he voted for the Iraq War, the very lapse in judgment that is supposed to disqualify John McCain from the presidency.

Joe Biden's selection means the Obama phenomenon has definitely experienced its Thermidor, hints of which we'd already seen in his decision -- despite all his good-government professions -- to opt out of public financing and in his centerward policy adjustments since the primaries. It turns out you've got to break a few eggs to make change. If it means disregarding central contentions of your candidacy, well, maybe that was all boob bait for impressionable young people and highly educated voters fond of lovely abstractions.

Obama surely would have loved to have picked a Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a fresh leader from outside Washington who would have made the ticket all about change and a new generation of Democratic leadership. Alas, somewhere between Berlin and Georgia -- as his polls numbers sagged and Democrats got nervous -- Obama was brought face to face with his weaknesses and made a defensive choice to try to fill them. The dream of waltzing to election on a rhetorical symphony of audacity and hope has been mothballed.

As Biden said of Obama at their joint appearance in Springfield, Ill., in a new kind of testimonial, "this man is a cleareyed pragmatist who will get the job done." That depiction of Obama would have set fewer hearts aflutter back in Iowa, but, as Democrats make their case in Denver, proving it to be so is imperative if Obama is going to win middle-class voters more concerned about their cost of living than inspirational flights of oratory in their next president.

The theme of Obama's (naturally quite fulsome) introduction of Biden in Springfield could have been "all the things I'm not": a man who "has stared down dictators and spoken out for America's cops and firefighters," who is "one of America's leading voices on national security," who has "decades of steady work across the aisle," and "who is ready to step in and be president."

Listening to Obama tick off Biden's accomplishments, one could wonder how it was logically possible for both these men to be ready to be president, the elder statesman and the neophyte who has been in the Senate less than four years, most of them spent campaigning for president. Obama also -- in another defensive move -- emphasized Biden's lunch-bucket roots. As the scrappy kid from Oahu, Hawaii ("the most removed population center on the planet," according to The Washington Post), Obama wants to squeeze every ounce of working-class street cred he can from Biden, the scrappy kid from Scranton, Pa.

In this sense, the ticket is balanced. Otherwise it isn't, not in terms of ideology, job description or geography. The Democrat with the most liberal voting record in the Senate picked the Democrat with the third-most liberal voting record; a senator picked a senator; and blue-state Illinois was joined by blue-state Delaware.

If we've learned anything about presidential politics during the past 40 years, it's that America elects Democrats who are moderates from the South. If Obama's going to buck that truism, he has to descend from the clouds and make a connection with average voters -- not as the messianic figure of the Democratic primaries or his Berlin speech, but as the "cleareyed pragmatist" of Biden's Springfield remarks. Obama's ultimate task in the Mile High City is to come down to Earth.