August 25, 2008

8/25: Reactions To Biden

The liberal blogosphere had a mostly lukewarm reaction to the news that Barack Obama had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. While the netroots have been very critical of Biden's votes for the Iraq War resolution and the 2005 bankruptcy bill, they still find him ideologically preferable to the other candidates rumored to be on Obama's VP short list (specifically IN Sen. Evan Bayh). So there was a palpable sense of relief in the liberal blogosphere when Obama ultimately chose Biden instead of Bayh.

Liberal bloggers also believe that Biden has his good qualities. The netroots love Biden's willingness to attack the GOP, and they're convinced that the Obama camp will benefit from his aggressive style. Even Markos Moulitsas, who was generally not a fan of the pick, wrote: "Given Obama's reluctance to play the partisan card, it should be fun having a real pit bull in the number two position to do some of the necessary dirty work."

The vast majority of conservative bloggers consider Biden a terrible choice for Obama's running mate. Many righty bloggers are buzzing about Biden's propensity for verbal gaffes, which they expect (and hope) will create problems for Obama during the fall campaign. Many conservative bloggers are pushing the idea that an Obama/Biden ticket represents all talk and no action. Jay Nordlinger calls it "the verbiage ticket" while Jonah Goldberg writes: "There's more than a small risk that Biden will reinforce the sense that this ticket is all about hearing itself talk."

OBAMA VEEPSTAKES: Biden? Well, It Could Have Been Worse...

The liberal blogosphere's reaction to the Biden announcement was one of relief rather than excitement:

• Atrios: "I'm not a big fan of [Biden] for a variety of reasons, but for a variety of other reasons I think he's a pretty good VP choice. Not my fantasy VP choice or close to it, but nonetheless pretty good. Better than many of the other floated names."
• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "I think this is a decent choice, especially given the alternatives (Bayh, shudder.)"
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "All things being equal, Obama could have done a whole lot worse."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "He's a good pick for the campaign. Biden's got a certain appeal to older white voters and working class voters that we in the new progressive movement don't really get. He's not from our world, he was wrong on Iraq and the Bankruptcy Bill, and he's kind of a blowhard and dislikes the blogs (he blames us for the 'clean, articulate' controversy). He's bad on the war on drugs, he subscribes to the 'antiwar left = not serious' concept, and he wants to keep residual troops in Iraq. In other words, he's perfect for the Obama campaign, reinforcing their key frame of 'change, but not scary liberal change'. [...] Biden's not a horrific pick, he's fine considering the choices."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "[Biden] wasn't my favorite choice for the gig, but he was far from my least-favorite choice either. The major pro is that this signals as desire to take the argument to John McCain on national security policy which is a wise decision -- the American people deserve to hear a full-spectrum debate about the issues facing the country rather than a positional battle in which one party talks about the economy and the other talks about national security. [...] Biden also has the lowest net worth of any U.S. Senator. Combined with Barack Obama whose prosperity is a very recent consequence of book sales, it's definitely a ticket that can argue they have more personal acquaintance with the struggles of middle class American life than John McCain or George Bush or recent Democratic nominees like John Kerry and Al Gore."
• digby: "[Biden] is undisciplined and unpredictable --- but I have to tell you, I think the Obama campaign could use a little bit of that at this point. [...] Maybe it will shake things up. It's a good sign that they picked someone who wasn't completely 'safe.' They could have done a lot worse --- and if Biden can speak the language of the working class Dems (even if his record speaks to the typical beltway fealty to big business) then he is an asset."
• BooMan: "Ideologically, I disagree with Biden on a number of issues. But I can fully support this pick. And I actually really like Joe Biden."

OBAMA VEEPSTAKES II: The Fighter Obama Needs?

While the netroots have some ideological differences with Biden (they're particularly critical of his votes for the Iraq War resolution and the 2005 bankruptcy bill), they believe that the Obama camp will benefit from his aggressive style:

• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "Joe Biden: the fighter we've been waiting for."
• Firedoglake's Blue Texan: "The thing I like most about Obama picking Biden is he's got sharp elbows and he's not afraid to throw them."
• Daily Kos' Moulitsas: "Biden can be a partisan pit bull when so warranted. Given Obama's reluctance to play the partisan card, it should be fun having a real pit bull in the number two position to do some of the necessary dirty work."
• Open Left's Mike Lux: "Say what you will about Biden, but he is one tough son-of-a-bitch. He doesn't back down from a fight, and he won't put up with the Republicans' bullshit. He says exactly what he thinks, which sometimes gets him into trouble with the traditional media and sometimes with the blogosphere, but I admire the bluntness even when I think he's full of shit. I think Obama needs that toughness by his side."

OBAMA VEEPSTAKES III: A Terrible Decision?

Most conservative bloggers ridiculed Obama's decision to choose Biden as his running mate:

• Goldberg: "I think it is an outright terrible decision on Obama's part to pick Biden. Yes, he helps balance Obama's inexperience on foreign policy, but he also reminds people of it. Yes, Biden could conceivably be effective as an attack dog. But Biden is such a gasbag he makes the Hindenburg look like a sack of rocks. Obama doesn't need to increase his lip-flapping quotient. Biden is a gaffe machine and Obama is bad explaining faults, and his VP's faults will inevitably become Obama's in the Fall campaign. [...] There's more than a small risk that Biden will reinforce the sense that this ticket is all about hearing itself talk."
• Nordlinger: "I am quite surprised -- nearly shocked -- at the pick of Biden. I believe Obama has made an error -- not just hope so, believe. [...] I don't see what Biden gains him. Biden is a slightly risible figure, what with his hair plugs (or whatever) and his many, many examples of public obnoxiousness. [...] The verbiage ticket, this is, and the arrogance ticket, and the emptiness ticket. McCain and his running-mate-to-be should really take them. Don't you think?"
• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "I breathed a sigh of relief that Obama chose Biden. Like Jay Nordlinger, I find that at best Biden adds nothing to the Democratic ticket. Rather than adding to Obama's attractions or neutralizing Obama's liabilities, if he does anything, Biden subtracts from Obama's strengths and contributes to his liabilities. [...] Biden's selection undercuts Obama's 'change' mantra, tending to reveal it as the kind of gasbaggery in which Biden coincidentally has distinguished himself in the course of a long and otherwise undistinguished career."
• The Weekly Standard's Jaime Sneider: "Every Republican operative I've talked to for the last week thought Biden was the weakest pick. He's a loose cannon who has already made several gaffes in the Hall of Fame of political screw-ups that will now be rehashed for the next week. Obama needed somebody that was reliable and could potentially deliver a red state. Biden is neither. Obama may think Biden shores up his own weakness on foreign policy, but it just emphasizes it. And given that most Americans think economic issues are more important, it's less clear what Biden delivers."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Not only has Biden not helped Obama, it looks like he's actually damaging the ticket with his addition. He certainly hasn't added any enthusiasm to the Democratic offering. Did Team Obama do any serious research on Biden and his effect before making this selection?"
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "With the addition of Slow Joe Biden to the ticket, Obama has added to his unsteady candidacy an epic amount Beltway cluelessness and arrogance unsupported by anything except frequent flier miles and Delaware's love for a chuckle-headed fellow with a big smile."
• The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini: "Instead of reinforcing Obama's message, Biden muddles it. Biden is the ultimate Washington insider, having been in the Senate for 36 years. [...] He has hardly held a real job, having been elected to the Senate as a young attorney fresh out of law school. In all likelihood, the Democratic ticket of Obama-Biden will have more years in Washington (38) than the McCain-led Republican ticket. So much for hope and change."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "The blogger in me is happy to see someone Biden get the nod, because he is sure to say some controversial things in the weeks to come. Let's be honest, the guy is a gaffe machine. He has already driven two presidential campaigns into the ground with his mouth. Will this be the third?"

OBAMA VEEPSTAKES IV: Biden? Ho-Hum

Other conservative bloggers were slightly less critical of the pick:

• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "All in all, Biden is probably an inferior pick to someone like [ex-GA Sen.] Sam Nunn or Hillary Clinton (who would have delivered a lot more votes), but he will help balance out Obama's inexperience, naivete, and lack of competence, which is what Barack desperately needs right now."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "The view that the Biden selection was poor because it undercuts Obama's message as the agent of change is questionable. Obama, I think, has recognized that what worked when he was seeking the Democratic nomination may not serve him well in the general election. This is standard political calculation and very probably correct in this instance. The presence of Good Ol' Joe of the ticket should be seen as an effort to reassure some of Hillary's supporters as well as moderate voters that Obama will not be the agent of radical change, just the kind of mainstream liberal change the Democrats traditionally advocate. [...] It's an effort worth making. Whether Biden proves to be the best vehicle for this undertaking is another matter."
• AmSpec Blog's James Antle: "The difficulty for an Obama-Biden ticket will be leveraging Joe Biden's assets without them turning into liabilities. (No, that's not a dirty joke.) One of the benefits of choosing Biden is that he is charismatic, funny, and can come across as a normal guy on the stump -- all problem areas for Obama. But the same shoot-from-the-hip tendency has produced a long list of Biden gaffes. Let Biden be a loose canon and the Obama camp will run into trouble. Rein him in too tightly and you might as well have picked ultra-boring [KS Gov.] Kathleen Sebelius."

MCCAIN: How You Livin', John McCain? In Mansions And Benz's...

Liberal bloggers believe that McCain made an enormous error when he admitted that he doesn't know how many houses he owns:

• Moulitsas: "Republicans just spent months building up their 'Obama is elitist' narrative, only to see it come crashing down under the weight of four? seven? eight? who the heck knows how many houses. And when I say 'who the heck knows', I mean 'who the heck knows'. Not even McCain knows. [...] And this is just getting started. John McCain life and lifestyle keeps getting in the way of his campaign's best zingers. They mock Obama's visit to his grandmother in Hawaii? Turns out McCain and Cindy met in Hawaii, and then they honeymooned in Hawaii. Exotic! Elitist! Blah blah blah. It's one big long season of the pot calling the kettle black."
• Daily Kos' DarkSyde: "At the risk of jeopardizing a long, long overdue media awakening and subsequent pile-on, given the material the press has had to work with it's just a little weird that the number of houses, fucking houses, is what it took to even begin to reverse the ongoing media cranial-rectal inversion on all matters McCain. The right was scared and they should be. For one fleeting instant, the media reacted with a show of objectivity laced with deadly accuracy, and the McCain mythos unraveled faster than a cheap ball of yarn in a room full of hyperactive kittens. No doubt the press will soon revert to their old, comfortable pattern where all news is good news for the McCain campaign."

Liberal bloggers are also pleased that the Obama camp made an issue of McCain's remarks:

• Stoller: "The way that McCain has been undermined by his own words on how he can't remember how many houses he owns was organized by the Obama campaign and the new and enlarged DNC. They pushed it out, kept it going, and managed the media cycle well. Importantly, they moved away from their standard negative attack -- big oil -- to seize an opportunity to define McCain's character. The campaign did not do this on Phil Gramm's 'nation of whiners' comment, for instance, but they did here, and that's a very good sign."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "The Houses gaffe exposes two of McCain's biggest vulnerabilities -- 1) the contrast between his old soldier pseudo-mystique and the pampered life he's led for almost 40 years and 2) the age-related wobbliness which has his campaign aides keeping him largely off limits to the traveling press. These dovetail with his loose-cannon approach to critical foreign policy questions. These issues -- particularly 2 and 3 -- are substantively critical issues. 1 is to the extent that it sheds light on McCain's general ignorance and indifference to bread-n-butter economic issues and his willingness to flip between progressive and Bushite tax policy over the course of a couple years. But the tempo of this election and the fall out from the 'celeb' attacks will be determined in large part not by factual particulars but by whether Obama can show that when someone hits him hard he hits back twice as hard. Not cowering, ignoring or complaining. This is about the score and not the libretto."

MEDIA CRITICISM: Fournier Strikes Again

As we've noted on previous occasions (and as The Politico's Michael Calderone describes here), liberal bloggers have been highly critical of the AP's Washington Bureau Chief, Ron Fournier. The netroots believe that Fournier is biased against Dems, and their criticism only grew louder after it was revealed that (a.) Fournier urged Karl Rove to "keep up the fight" in a 2005 email, and (b.) Fournier spoke with several of McCain's top aides about joining the AZ senator's presidential campaign in October 2006.

This past weekend, Fournier further angered the netroots by writing an AP "analysis" piece arguing that Obama's decision to choose Joe Biden as his running mate "shows [a] lack of confidence":

"The candidate of change went with the status quo. In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness -- inexperience in office and on foreign policy -- rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions."

Unsurprisingly, the McCain camp is reportedly "jazzed" about Fournier's piece, whereas liberal bloggers are furious:

• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "As recently as last year, Ron Fournier considered working for the McCain campaign. Instead he took a job as Washington bureau chief for the AP, but it looks like he's still working for McCain. Fournier say in a new AP piece that the Biden choice demonstrates that Obama 'lacks confidence,' that Biden is the 'ultimate insider,' and that it threatens to undermine Obama's message of 'change.' It could've come straight off the fax machine of the McCain press shop, with no need for editing (indeed, the McCain campaign says it loves the Fournier piece). [...] It's simply not acceptable that the head of the AP's Washington bureau, in charge of presidential campaign coverage, sees the AP as little more than an extension of the McCain Campaign's message. [...] Ron Fournier must be taken off the Presidential beat. He's got an obvious conflict-of-interest."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "It's going to be an awfully long fall campaign if the AP Washington bureau under Ron Fournier insists on shoddy journalistic techniques and merely regurgitating the spin from the McCain campaign."
• dday: "Ron Fournier has to go. The 'straight reporter' who actively sought a job in the McCain press operation is commenting on the Presidential race? I think The John McCain Show figured Fournier would be more valuable on the outside."
• Firedoglake's TBogg: "It didn't really matter who Obama selected, Fournier was going to make a case against them. So, while everyone else was waiting for their Obama VP text, Fournier was receiving one from from Karl Rove: 'Keep up the fight.' That's his job."
• Mark Kleiman: "It seems to me that, just as a matter of appearances, allowing someone who negotiated for a job with one of the candidates to drive AP's election coverage is imprudent. The sycophantic emails from Fournier to Karl Rove -- at the moment when, as we now know, Rove was engaged in an especially ghoulish act of deception with the press as his instrument -- make things worse. Those suspicions might have slept if Fournier and his colleagues had provided even reasonably even-handed treatment of the candidates. But the actual slant of AP's Presidential campaign coverage -- culminating in this morning's hit-piece aimed at Joe Biden and at Barack Obama for choosing him -- is now too obvious to ignore."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "After their top presidential reporter, Ron Fournier, interviewed for a job with the McCain presidential campaign, it's simply abominable that AP would keep him on the presidential beat. Does anyone doubt that a McCain presidency will try to hire Fournier for press secretary? Please, it's a given. Fournier will always have his next job in the back of his mind. You simply don't even entertain a job offer from someone you cover if you intend to continue covering them. We are far beyond the appearance of impropriety."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan also criticizes Fournier: "Ron Fournier's dramatic use of opinion in the first paragraph of the Biden story going out on all the wires is an aggressive Republican spin. Fournier has already weakened the AP's rep for pretty straight-up reportage. It just got a lot weaker. Last spring, by the way, Fournier was lambasting Obama for arrogance. Now, apparently, it's a lack of confidence. Whatever works, I guess. But please, get a blog."

Meanwhile, MoveOn.org has launched an campaign urging its members to email the AP and "tell them that the public's faith in the 160-year-old AP will be gone if Ron Fournier is allowed to continue his slanted articles against Democrats and for McCain."

MEDIA CRITICISM II: McCain's House Gaffe Is Bad For...Obama?

Liberal bloggers are harshly criticizing Time's Mark Halperin for arguing that McCain's admission that he doesn't know how many houses he owns will go down as "one of the worst moments in the entire campaign for...Barack Obama":

"My hunch is this is going to end up being one of the worst moments in the entire campaign for one of the candidates but it's Barack Obama. [...] I believe that this opened the door to not just Tony Rezko in that ad, but to bring up Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright, to bring up his relationship with Bill Ayers."

• Marshall: "It's a very tough standard, but I think this may be the stupidest thing Halperin has ever said. (Yes, I know, I know...) The McCain folks must be both loving and laughing at the guy at the same time. [...] Shorter Halperin: If you're a Democrat, you really just better take it. Because the more you fight back, the worse it's gonna be for you."
• Yglesias: "Not only is this silly in a first-order sense, the underlying premises that a door needs to be opened for McCain to deploy those kind of attacks is bizarre. Nothing was stopping the McCain campaign from 'going there' with misleading Rezko- or Ayers-related arguments before this happened. They just weren't doing it because they didn't think it was the correct time, strategically, to raise those issues. But you'd have to be extraordinarily naive to believe that the McCain campaign was genuinely just not going to mention any of this stuff until Mean Ol' Barack came along to make fun of the idea of being so rich that you can't keep track of your mansions. And whatever you may say about Halperin, he's not a naive guy."
• Blue Texan: "McSame gets caught admitting he doesn't know how many freaking houses he owns -- a gaffe that's so monumental and politically damaging in an election when the economy will likely be the central issue, it makes Poppy's grocery store moment seem mild in comparison. And yet, because Obama mocked him for it, Obama's the one who's in trouble, because, darn it, those oh-so-civil and respectful Republicans that are notoriously hesitant to engage in negative political attacks -- finally get to play dirty. Unfuckingbelievable."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Mark Halperin has outdone himself today, claiming that the McCain housing gaffe is bad for Obama. No. Seriously. [...] For service to the cause, it is with much pride that I award [Halperin] the Second Golden McPenis, for meritorious service to McCain's scrotum. Well done, Mark. You earned it."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Biden In 2016?

Matthew Yglesias thinks people shouldn't discount the possibility:

"I'm kind of surprised by the number of people I'm reading who seem convinced that Joe Biden would be too old to run for President in 2016 at the age of 74. John McCain is running for president right now at the age of 72, and though voters do seem to have some concerns about his age it's hardly a crippling disadvantage. What's more, to the best of my knowledge Biden, unlike McCain, doesn't have a history of cancer or physical ailments stemming from years of captivity and torture. From an actuarial point of view, Biden-at-74 will almost certainly have a longer life expectancy than McCain-at-72. What's more, given population trends the country as a whole will be older in 2016 than it is in 2008. Obviously, a million things could happen that prevent Bidenmania from sweeping the country in 2016, but if Obama wins two elections and Biden stays in reasonable health (big ifs!) I don't see what's stopping him from running."

LEST WE FORGET: Another McSweeney's List

McSweeney's Laura Registrato makes a list of "T-Shirts My Ex-Boyfriends Would Wear in a More Honest World":

• "Ask Me About How It's Not My Fault"
• "If You Lived Here I'd Be Uncomfortable and Squirrelly by Now"
• "If You Can Read This You Can Also See My Crippling Self-Doubt"
• "I Survived a Traumatic Childhood...and Am Prepared to Take It Out on You"
• "You're With Stupid"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at August 25, 2008 01:01 PM