The Destroyer of Finance

 Biden.  So… to really attract the middle of the road and the apathetic, the machine at the DNC thinks: Hey!  Let’s pick an old white liberal senator from the northeast!  Well, we can’t pick a democratic governor from a republican state, because then we might lose that office in the replacement race.  Also, we should pick someone who is a real Washington insider (their words not mine) and strong on foreign policy… since (apparently) Obama’s weakness in economic policy doesn’t matter since we’re going to assume we’ve got a slam dunk on the economy.

 What a bad pick.  What a typical party pick.  Either Obama’s not a smart as I thought, or he had to bow to the party line.  A senator with a long voting record to target?  Someone who embodies party politics?  How does that fit in with the campaign?

 Also, I noted NPR running a promo for a segment on how the DNC convention was seeking to define Obama better.  Why?  Can’t they see that Obama’s campaign to date, the one that has energized people and attracted the middle of the road and the uncommitted right is built on being undefined?

 Hope!  Change!  This concepts are best lest formless so that they can take the shape most appealing to whoever receives the message!  You can’t even attack the issue, because then you’re just being a mean politician attacking hope and change.

 Once you define hope and change it becomes just a list of social programs, taxes, and/or spending cuts that turn off republicans and moderates and project a “politics as usual” air that deflates the enthusiasm of the apathetic voters.  Lists of programs etc is an easy target to attack as well.

 Bloomberg would have been awesome for Obama.  Epic.  Biden is epic.  Epic fail.

 So Bloomberg is a possibility for McCain, but I think Romney works better for him.  Bloomberg has had too much of a public love affair with Obama, and Romney would still give McCain the economic expert that Obama lacks (while McCain has his own foreign relations cred).

 Speaking of foreign relations cred, Biden has such a strong base:

 - Declared that the US had “no choice” but to remove Hussein in Iraq, and voted for the war.

 - Was described by the UN Weapon’s Inspector Ritter as having ignored Ritter’s arguments against WMDs in Iraq while seeking to support his own conclusion that Hussein not only had Bio and Chem weapons, but was attempting to gain nuclear weapons.

 - He supports a “third way” in Iraq, which sounds good on paper (and makes all Bill Clinton fans horny), but is doomed to total failure simply because not only are the majority of Iraqis not on board, the surrounding Arab states wouldn’t support it either (notably Turkey).

- It’s worth noting that he also co-sponsored a non binding resolution against the troop surge in Iraq and joined in referring to the move as the “McCain Doctrine” (actually John Edwards’ words).  Don’t hear much of that talk these days.

- Was/Is? a BIG supporter of the PATRIOT ACT, even going so far as to claim he had introduced an almost identical bill years earlier.

- He does cover Obama’s Jewish sore spot by being a staunch backer of Israel, so clearly that endears him to those other countries we might need to deal with… like Iran.

 I’ll grant that I agree with his more lenient stance on immigration and like that he’s against ethanol, not that he’s view on ethanol will do much good with corn fueled Obama around.  Throw in his views on guns, and he’s pretty much a disaster.

 Will he help the Dems win Pennsylvania?  No.  So he’s big in Philly?  Ahh… Philly has been a democratic stronghold for long time, no?  He’ll certainly NOT help in any of ther southern states.

 It’s amazing how often the DNC can’t get out of it’s own way.