Obama's running mate finally chosen

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/23/biden.democrat.vp.candidate/index.html

I’m pleased, and this isn’t unexpected. A lot of speculation had been building that it was Biden, and I doubt Obama would have ever picked Hillary.

Abstinence only education, starting another war in Africa, the Patriot act with “limited” wiretapping, arguing the police and military should have all the weapons, perpetuating crime through punitive “enforcement” that has never worked in the past, what doesn’t this guy believe in that I’m against?

Oh, well, he has a token US Liberal stance of “I’ll get around to it,” on the environment. That’s something.

Well, at least he seems to know <i>something</i> about the situation in Iraq and N. Korea

Biden was chosen, I imagine, primarily to counter McCain’s foreign policy experience since he has served longer and in more powerful foreign policy positions. The Obama/Biden ticket will probably attempt to hearken back to the Clinton/Gore “co-presidency.” Should Obama be elected, you can bet foreign policy decisions will be very Bidenesque, for whatever that’s worth. The only person I could see that would have given a comparable amount of foreign policy presence would have been Bill Richardson, but he has some scandals in his past Biden doesn’t really have.

I think the foreign policy will be very similar no matter who’s elected president.

Clinton only has herself to blame for not getting picked. She should’ve cut a deal early on.

I bet a lot of people were disappointed with this and are still hoping for that Obama/Clinton ticket (not happening now). But I would like to see how this turns out for Obama. Should be fun to watch…haha

Although personally, I don’t really care for politics. Interesting to keep up with, but I don’t choose to get involved in the process.

Leaving Iraq in sixteen months and having guidelines for leaving…that’s a pretty big difference to me. Obama’s main talking point early on in the primary season was how he would leave in those sixteen months. He’s stated this position with as much tenacity as Bush’s Sixteen Word’s - both statements are wrong to me but to each their own.

This is bad news for Obama. What’s been sinking him since the beginning was bitter Clinton supporters refusing to work with him, and now he’s picked what amounts to a conservative Democrat (in an increasingly liberal party) just so he could try and balance out McCain’s foreign policy experience, something that has not really played a major role in his slipping poll numbers to begin with. It’s McCain labeling him a media whore, along with a short-term drop in oil and gas prices, that’s really starting to hit him hard.

Still, I support Obama.

What deal could she make “early on”?

She had no reason to drop out of the primary early; heck, she won states on the day Obama clinched the nomination. There was a huge fuss about how she wasn’t concilatory on the night he clinched the Democratic nomination but I can understand that; after getting 18 million votes she had every right to ask the people “to tell her what she should do and post their opinion on…HillaryClinton.com!”

At most, it took her a week to go ahead and make a truly concilatory speech concerning Obama winning the nomination and it was by most accounts a good speech that called out for unification. But honestly, now would have been her best and most sensible time to cut a deal - not early on. Once she lost the nomination tensions between the campaigns were still too strong, but that was just a side-effect of the tough primary season.

There was also the fact that Obama didn’t need Hillary during the early May or the summer. It was during that time that the media went crazy about Obama pulling them a fast one to meet Clinton at her home. There were literally cameras surrounding the place. I doubt the meeting was even about the vice presidency as much as it was about unifying the Democratic base after a tumultous season. Obama was the one at the center of the storm in those months after his presumptive nominee title was solidified.

It’s now, when Obama has tested the waters, and failed to make a clear enough case against McCain to have a sizable lead (indeed, his lead in the time after his nomination has decreased) that Clinton could have had reason to make a deal. The time after the Middle Eastern trip he took and his usual stump speech in Berlin (grandoise, hopeful, etc.). After that trip, which was designed to give the American populace reason to believe in the appearance of a Barack Obama that possessed experience in the foreign policy front, and only after that trip that Clinton was strong enough and Obama weak enough for the idea of a vice-presidency to gain traction.

Obama pulled a great photo-op with Al-Maliki and Petraeus and so on and so forth but after all that his polling number didn’t move an iota. If Clinton was going to be picked, it would have been at that moment in the campaign’s mind; while the image of their stump speech in Unity was still fresh in their mind. Clinton’s 18 million votes looked like a coaliton that really could have helped at that moment and there was no better way to get them then to have her as a vice-president.

After his initial bungling of the Georgia crisis the impetus to choose someone with foreign policy credentials grew too strong for Clinton to have a chance. After that point, it was a matter of finding someone who had the credentials but could also be accepted by the Clinton voters. If we want to talk about someone cutting deals early on, Joe Biden is it. That man set himself up very early for this; he never endorsed Clinton or Obama, so he was able to give himself the appearence of the statesman above the fray which insulated him from the condemnation Bill Richardson suffered from the Clinton voters. James Carville decried him as Judas when he endorsed Obama and Clinon voters would not have forgotten this. He also is seen as someone who appeals to the blue-collar voters that Clinton managed to get to her side - albeit, too late to win. He was, thus, the safest choice and the most able to quell the foreign policy problem.

What really kept Clinton from being Vice President is a combination of the hubris of the Clinton campaign and the inability of the Obama campaign to seal the deal. I’d side more with the cause being Obama’s campaign fumbling when it most counted more than anything. Clinton was going to be de facto nominee in everyone’s mind for a long, long time and Obama gave them little reason to believe that this would not be the case until the primaries after Super Tuesday; Clinton was so sure that she would have sealed a victory on Super Tuesday that she hadn’t built any real grassroots in the primaries to follow. It was only after those consecutive victories that Obama’s lead became substantial; until their difference in who was ahead had been neglible. Had Clinton managed to just split the difference among those states between California and Texas the chance of a constested convention or a Clinton vice presidency would have been expected or at least more likely. Obama added to this as well; had he won New Hampshire pundits would have called game over, had he won Texas and Ohio they would have called game over, etc. Each time things seemed bleak for Clinton and a key Obama victory would have caused her to pull back, reassess her options, and begin to set herself up for the vice presidency, Obama kept giving her reason not to do so.

“I don’t see why I should pull out when I’m still winning states.” - Gosh, if I was a Democrat I would vote for Clinton. I was hating her at first, but her tenacity, her ability to say “to heck with the pundits; I can see the tide, let’s roll the hard six” and actually manage to keep going despite the unwarranted calls from all sides for her to end it and step down.

I’m beginning to digress.

What’s really wrong with Sin’s statement is the belief that the vice-presidency can be decided by a deal of sorts. It’s not. A deal means there’s an expectation of something that will come in return from the presumptive nominee at that moment and that’s not how these appointments work. Presidents despise the appearance of a co-Presidency. The story goes Reagan chose Bush 41 precisely because a deal had to be made (Kissinger and Greenspan had to be in the cabinet) in order to have Gerald Ford as a Vice President and because Reagan didn’t want a co-Presidency.

The Vice President is there to advise the President and to aid him in the decision making process. The only thing they should get in return is the ability to ride the coat tails of a popular Presidential term afterwards (which is pretty darn useful; just look at Bush and Gore). Heck, you don’t even have to have been the VP of a popular President and you’d still get enough force behind you to get become the nominee of your party - just look at Mondale. But Clinton doesn’t need Obama’s coat tails to run in 2012 or 2016 if he manages to get eight years out of the gig. The deal would have truly been a one-way street for Obama and just a way for him to get a larger segment of the population. Clinton would have forced him to adapt the role of Vice President to something along the ways of a co-Presidency and that hubris doomed her chances. She would have wanted a deal for power rather than recognizing the fact that the Vice President is meant to augment the powers of the President, not to volley for that power. It would have shown how weak he was to independents and the general public.

Vice President’s haven’t even been that important until…well, Dick Cheney. Well, no, actually, Cheney has simply put into practice all the positions of advisor and more which Mondale actually established. Grah, I’m rambling again.

Besides, the last time someone dropped out of a Presidential Race in order to get an appointment in the government we called it the Corrupt Bargain.

…what makes you think he’s telling the truth about his position? Or that McCain is telling the truth about his own position? Or that either man, once facing the reality of the Iraq situation, won’t have to end up doing the exact same thing?

The only real truth is that American foreign policy is so complex and massive that any one administration can have little control over it. Eventually, if a politician wants to survive, he has to alter his positions to the reality - those that don’t usually get voted out very quickly, or their policies fail miserably.

Another truth is that American foreign policy has been fairly consistent since the end of WWII. Consider:

1)Korean War
2)Bay of Pigs
3)Vietnam
4)bombing of Libya
5)Grenada
6)Panama
7)Gulf War I
8)Kosovo

The whole ‘beating the piss out of small countries’ thing is hardly unique to Bush. Ever since the end of WWII, America has in fact followed an imperial strategy of estabilishing a military presence in the most strategic areas of the world, and encircling perceived enemies, such as Russia and China. this has largely been driven by a mix of economic self-interest, and paranoia. The economic interest is what drives the corporations to start these wars, and the paranoia is what convinces ordinary folks to go along. Even in seemingly un-economic wars, such as Vietnam, the causes were basically economic - businenessmen in this country made out like bandits in the construction of armaments and the infrastructure to maintain them in Vietnam.

Bush’s administration is merely this imperial trajectory taken to the extreme - the full fruition of an imperial policy followed since the Truman administration. Maybe the process will reverse itself after this, I dunno. I certainly hope so. Our economic self-interest is still the same, and the paranoia still seems the same, so the reality is still the same, and that reality will most likely force Obama or McCain to keep a large military base in Iraq.

If we do end up leaving Iraq, it will be because of a fundamental shift in the nature of the American polity, i.e. American society itself. If that happens, it would be a miracle. But, like I said, economic self-interest and paranoia are the still teh same. American businesses desperately want control of Iraqi oil fields - and the ability to attack other oil-rich countries. And the American people are still paranoid enough to believe that if we leave Iraq, the entire Middle East will descend into Armaggedon.

I’m sure SK or someone could go into more specific details about how American foreign policy has been following the same track for quite awhile now. Actually I’m kinda interested to see SKs take on it :stuck_out_tongue:

Clinton would have been worse in the long run. Obama would have had the immediate benefit of winning over Clinton loyalists, but even then he might not have reached the hardcore supporters who will ONLY support her if she’s the presidential nominee herself. Presidential candidates have brands, and a Clinton VP ticket would have set fire to Obama’s.

Obama wanted to avoid a situation where he looked like the Clintons were manipulating him, and nobody wanted Bill Clinton to have an excessive role in either a Clinton or Obama campaign. It was wise for Obama to deny them the influence of a VP ticket since it would have hurt him eventually.

Curtis reveals why it matters fuck-all who is in office.

The thing is, even Bush is agreeing to general guidelines for leaving Iraq. Bush never wanted us to stay there forever. McCain never planned to stay there forever either. That fundamental shift of your has already taken place.

I refuse to believe that remark was intended to be serious.

hearing candidates talk about leaving iraq turns me off. accept the situation as it is, and deal with it accordingly. you cant change someone’s past action but you can prosecute the fuck out of them for it. sixteen months is a gigantic joke but so is talking about “leaving” at all.

The U.S. and Iraq agreed on foreign troops leaving by 2011. By June 2009, if the situation continues to stabilize, Coalition forces will cede total security control over to the Iraqis in all major cities. 2011 is the target date for all Coalition forces to be out.

I’m a little dumbfounded that you’re so surprised at the fact that Bush or McCain have no desire to stay in Iraq forever in the form of the occupational force we are today. From the very beginning of the war, Rumsfeld’s strategy mirrored a belief that we could get in and get out with a small force - much to Senator McCain’s chagrin and correctly so. It was only after the Golden Mosque was attacked and sectarian strife grew out of control thanks to our incompetent post-invasion strategy that we realized that this was going to be a long term investment.

But this was never meant to be about occupying Iraq for an indefinite amount of time just for the heck of it. In Scott McClellan’s own words, the President wanted Iraq to be the centerpiece of democracy in the Middle East; but in my opinion, you can’t have a true democracy in an occupied state. Thus, we have to leave. We’ve been able to make significant progress in Iraq because we’ve let the Iraqis know that we have no desire of staying there. The only reason why Al-Sadr ordered his militias to stand down even further was because he was under the assumption that the US was agreeing to a withdrawal. In fact, if Prime Minister Al-Maliki gets what he wants within in the terms of US-Iraqi security agreements, there won’t even be US bases in Iraq. Camp Anaconda and all those other places will be gone.

Obama would leave in the sixteen months afterward, come heck or high water. The situation could deteriorate rapidly but he would be bound by all those who voted for him in office to ignore that - with a Democratic Congress along side him he’ll have enough juice to do that.

McCain has also stated that we’ll leave once the mission has succeded and no sooner. If we were to stay, it would be in the same capacity that we have in South Korea - a military base in a crucial part of the world so if war breaks out we’ll be able to mobilize quickly.

That’s not a fundamental shift, that’s, uh, exactly the same thing.

how much difference does a half year make in a war thats approaching a decade? because thats the only difference between “the target date for all Coalition forces to be out” and May 2010 (16 months™ after the inauguration)

MATTHEWS: Are you one of those who holds up an optimistic view of the post-war scene? Do you believe that the people of Iraq or at least a large number of them will treat us as liberators?

MCCAIN: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Saddam’s government, McCain warned, “is a clear and present danger to the United States of America.”

McCain demanded Saddam’s removal during the debate over the Iraq war resolution:

"He has developed stocks of germs and toxins in sufficient quantities to kill the entire population of the earth multiple times. He has placed weapons laden with these poisons on alert to fire at his neighbors within minutes, not hours, and has devolved authority to fire them to subordinates. He develops nuclear weapons with which he would hold his neighbors and us hostage.

“I believe as strongly today as ever, the mission was necessary, achievable and noble,” McCain said to prolonged cheers. (2004)

That’s a man with judgment, no shit.