Biden

Can anyone hear what Governor Palin is saying? 

I could swear that she’s being drowned out by the sound of every dead grammar teacher spinning in his/her grave.

My wife just changed the channel with my blessing.  Governor Palin is coming across as better-prepared than in recent interviews…but it was getting extremely painful for us to listen to her.

I was awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of my phone buzzing with a newly received text message.

It was, of course, the announcement of Biden having been tapped as Obama’s running mate.

Geez folks, don’t you think you could have kept it a secret 3 or 4 more hours?

Maybe not:

Aug 23 01:14 AM US/Eastern

Barack Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware late Friday night to be his vice presidential running mate, according to a Democratic official, balancing his ticket with an older congressional veteran well-versed in foreign and defense issues[…]

The official who spoke did so on condition of anonymity, preferring not to pre-empt a text-message announcement the Obama campaign promised for Saturday morning.

For all that there is to dislike about the current administration, you have to give them credit for one thing – they at least have done a surprisingly decent job of managing leaks (unless the leak was to punish someone who wasn’t toeing the party line).

I just skimmed through the list of articles in Google reader to find conservative bloggers dancing for joy over being able to tap a treasure trove of Biden gaffes, while much gnashing of teeth appears to be coming from certain areas of the netroots over Biden being “too moderate”.

It’s going to be a long 2 months and change, I fear.

From Reliable Politics:

Senator Joe Biden of Delaware will drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination. Biden came 5th place in the caucus. Biden originally said a third place finish is what his campaign needed to continue beyond Iowa.

And from the Boston Globe:

Democrat Chris Dodd, who moved his entire family to Iowa for the last weeks of the campaign, dropped out tonight after his poor showing in the caucuses, CNN and the Associated Press reported.

The Connecticut senator had hoped to finish at least fourth, but was seventh with almost all precincts reporting.

In their shoes, I probably would have still tried to hold on for five more days, until New Hampshire, in hopes of a miracle…but these announcements were inevitable.

Via this post on Colin McEnroe’s blog at the Courant, I encountered the first “Who’s my candidate” meme survey that I’ve seen for the ‘08 elections at wqad.com.

While I’m not particularly impressed with the questions, due in part to lack of emphasis on issues I’m more interested in and in not being satisfied with the choices offered, it does a good job of highlighting something I’ve known, or at least strongly suspected, for a while—that no one campaigning on either the D or the R side really “fits me”.

While some of the comments on Colin’s post make references to scoring in the 40’s and 50’s, the best “fits” on my survey were Biden at 19, Obama at 18, Romney at 18, Hillary at 18, McCain at 18, Dodd at 17 and (heaven help me) Gravel at 17.

I almost hope Ron Paul can attract enough attention to libertarian views to make it a little less of an exercise in political suicide for a candidate to run on a libertarianish platform.

You have to think that it’s time to reconsider your candidacy when a “fringe” candidate is out-fundraising you. From Washington Wire:

The antiwar libertarian raised more than $3 million in the third quarter, up from $2.4 million in the second quarter and $641,000 in the first three months of the year.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, Paul out-raised old Washington hands including Democrats Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who took in $1.5 million, and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who raised just under $2 million.

The flip side of the story is, of course, that Ron Paul is having such financial success and that he’s been particularly effective with the funds he has raised.

I’m glad that in the (albeit limited) press exposure he’s received, Dr. Paul has come across far less shrill than he did a few months ago, and I can’t help but wonder if his support is more from Libertarians donning Republican clothing. However, it’s still encouraging to see that someone preaching fiscal discipline and smaller government appears to be in the race for a good while longer.