"John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off..."
"I’ve been calling for more troops for over two years, along with John McCain and others subsequent to my saying that."
"'My impression is [Obama] thinks that if we leave, somehow the Iraqis are going to have an epiphany” of peaceful coexistence among warring sects. 'I’ve seen zero evidence of that.'"
"The more people learn about them (Obama and Hillary) and how they handle the pressure, the more their support will evaporate."
Ironically, now that he's running against two senators, McCain and a non-career politician running mate could argue that they are the candidates for change.* Again the National Review forecasts what we'll be hearing daily for the next nine weeks:
"Before winning election to the Senate three-and-a-half decades ago—Biden ranks fourth in seniority among Democrats, sixth overall; how's that for a fresh face?—Biden practiced law for three years. That's it. Three years of fresh-out-of-law school practice represents the sum and total of Biden's profession experience before joining the Senate. [SVS: compare this to Meg Whitman, for example, being a self-made billionaire.]
"Obama-Biden? A candidate with an astonishingly thin professional background—Community organizer? Desultory lecturer in law school?—has just named as his running mate a man whose principal professional achievement is to have perfected his skills as a gasbag."
The Democrats just don't seem to get it. Yes, Biden would probably be a much better VP than Hillary, but there will be no O'Biden administration because the Democrats are horrible at playing the identity politics that win national elections.
The Economist sums up Obama's challenges well; it's conclusion is spot on:
"Most of all, [Obama] needs to spend those 68 days showing that he understands, and can connect with, ordinary Americans. The economy ought to be the Democrats’ trump card, just as security tends to be the Republicans’. But some of the most surprising recent polls show that Mr Obama is rated lower by voters on how he would handle the economy than is Mr McCain, who has admitted that he doesn’t know much about the subject. That may be because Mr Obama often sounds curiously disconnected from the troubles of anyone except America’s very poorest. Mrs Clinton was much better at empathising with middle America, and Mr Obama needs to show he has learnt from her.
"That could also help heal the wounds of the Democratic Party, which, after the bitter contest and Mr Obama’s narrow victory, are still raw. If the Democrats remain divided they will lose the presidency. Were that to happen, after Iraq, Katrina and an economic crisis, they might well want to consider an alternative line of work."
*I'm pretty sure JFK-LBJ is the only two-senator ticket to win. An interesting comparison--JFK selected LBJ to gain his Southern supporters; Obama chose not to go with Hillary to gain her supporters.
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