Some misc. info on Obama’s veep pick:
- The AP has a basic timeline of his life/career, including the tidbit that he was a polisci/history major in college.1 (Some biographical components of note are listed in the next several bullet points.)
- He graduate law school in 1968.
- He entered politics in 1970 with election to the New Castle County Council.
- He was first elected to the Senate in 1972.
- His first wife and his daughter were killed in a traffic accident in 1972.
- His son, Joseph R. “Beau” Biden, is a member of the Army National Guard, and his unit is slated for deployment to Iraq in October. Some info on that from MSNBC’s First Read: Beau Biden’s deployment to Iraq.
- So now when students ask me what they can do with a polisci degree, I can let them know that major party VP nominations are a possibility. [↩]
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August 23rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Obama majored in poli sci too (with an international affairs focus, I believe).
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:29 pm
My take on Biden:
I felt there were 4 groups he could pick from, depending on how he sees his chances:
1> The “Happy Days” candidates. These would have been taken if Obama saw himself as near unbeatable. Pick the guy who reinforces the HOPEANDCHANGE message. This pick would have been a liberal unknown, maybe even somebody with no governing experience. The head of a nonprofit comes to mind.
2> The “Let’s play safe” candidate. This would be someone who can do no harm, but fill in a few of the holes and bring a state. A Tim Kaine or Evan Bayh fits here.
3> The “We gotta shake it up” candidate. This is where Biden fits in as did Chet Edwards in his boomlet. He fills the big weakness — inexperience. He has baggage, but hopefully he’ll staunch the bleeding. He’s comfortable being the attack dog, and will be an asset in an Obama administration.
4> The “screw governing, loose the nukes” candidates. Of course this is Hillary. The thought of Bill roaming the West Wing, bigfooting anybody he feels like, and offering commentary to the media on what Obama’s doing wrong would be a nightmare. However when a ship is in extremis it doesn’t worry about who the rescuer is.
So I think that the Obama camp aren’t pleased with how the race is going and was looking for a way to change the momentum (as they did with the new sharper tone). We’ll see if JB can do that.