parting thought

I'm about to retire to my tent (it's cooler now, so the tent won't be a sweatbox, and once I'm in the tent I won't have to slather on all that anti-bug crap), but I wanted to make a quick remark about Obama's choice of Joe Biden as running mate, a move that appears to be garnering Big O some flak from both sides of the aisle.

What boggles my mind is that there are still people out there who think Hillary would have made a better choice. Such people have lost touch with reality: Hillary Clinton would have been the kiss of death for the Dems. I say that as a disinterested party, being neither liberal nor conservative.

The GOP has been in disarray since at least 2006 if not before; it's one of the reasons why they ended up with presumptive nominee John McCain and not a more classically conservative Republican like Fred Thompson. The common wisdom (and this is subscribed to by many of the saner Democrats) has been that to bring Hillary into the fray would be to hand the Republicans the perfect target on which to focus their energy. I think this is still true; Hillary-as-veep would sink Obama's chances far more quickly and decisively than almost any other Democrat choice. Hillary would bring not only her own baggage, but also that of her scene-stealing husband.

Conservative remarks about Biden have been along the lines of "Ha! He's not far removed from McCain on foreign policy!" and "Biden represents the status quo, not change!" If that's the best the GOP attack machine can muster, then I'd say Biden's a good, solid choice. If we read between the lines, the implication seems to be that Biden will serve as a complement to Obama's idealism and very liberal voting record. How is that a bad thing?

Now I'll be morbidly curious to see whom McCain picks. Many GOPers see McCain as too, well, liberal for their tastes, which is why I think Fred Thompson might actually be a good complement for him.


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