Obama to name Joe Biden as VP candidate BY CRAIG GORDON |
1:47 AM EDT, August 23, 2008
WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama has chosen Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, shoring up his presidential ticket with one of his party's leading experts on foreign affairs, Democratic sources confirmed early Saturday.
Biden, 65, emerged as the clear victor in Obama's vice-presidential sweepstakes over the course of the day Friday -- as two of the strongest contenders fell away and aides to long-shot pick Hillary Rodham Clinton said there were no indications she would be the choice.
Biden's prospects rose dramatically as Friday night wore on, as first Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, then Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh were knocked out of contention. Clinton's chances vanished Friday as well, as aides confirmed she had never been vetted by Obama's campaign -- which never sought financial and other records.
In Biden, Obama gets a running mate who can bolster Obama's own relative inexperience in foreign affairs -- a concern among voters as they weigh the choice between Obama and Republican John McCain, a former Navy pilot and Vietnam POW.
Biden, a veteran of more than three decades in the Senate, chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has been a fierce critic of President George W. Bush's foreign policy. Biden backed the Iraq war at first, but later emerged as a sharp critic of the conflict.
Obama's campaign clearly hopes Biden will be a forceful presence on the campaign trail, to rebut charges that Obama is ill-prepared for the job and stand up to his fellow senator McCain on foreign policy.
Yet Biden can be long-winded and made some gaffes in his recent presidential campaign -- he had apologized earlier for describing Obama as "articulate" and "clean" in one episode that was viewed by some Obama supporters as racially insensitive. And he'd had to defend his remark that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."
He was once some of a political wunderkind himself -- joining the Senate at age 29 as one of the youngest ever to do so. His first presidential race in 1988 ended abruptly when he was caught lifting lines in a speech from a British politician. And a race for president this year never really got off the ground.
Biden confronted tragedy five weeks after his first election. In 1972, his first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed when a tractor-trailer broad-sided her station wagon as she drove home with a family Christmas tree.
The Biden developments capped a day swirling with speculation, as Obama kept mum on his pick.Clinton herself had told associates that she didn't expect the job to come her way. In fact, one Clinton source who declined to be identified said Friday: "If it were to happen, the person who would be the most surprised is her."
The no-vetting story touched off criticism from some in Clinton's camp that it was a dig at the former first lady, whose supporters already are threatening to make a noisy show of displeasure at the Democratic convention opening Monday.
"I don't think Senator Obama has had a conversation with Senator Clinton about the vice presidency, either about her, or about seeking her counsel about who it should be," James Carville, a Democratic strategist with ties to the Clintons, told CNN. "There's no doubt that some people are going to view this as she is not being accorded respect."
Clinton on Friday deflected talk about the VP slot and defended herself against questions over how hard she's working on behalf of Obama, saying, "I've done more than anybody has done in my position, and I intend to keep doing everything that I can."
Clinton also insisted to reporters while visiting the New York State Fair in Syracuse that she had never explicitly said she wanted the No. 2 slot -- even though she told supporters she would say "yes" during a Long Island fundraiser two weeks ago.
Still, Obama's campaign kept reporters in suspense, not to mention its supporters -- some of whom said they took their cell phones to bed this week to avoid missing the announcement.
By Friday, even some of Clinton's most stalwart backers seemed resigned that she wouldn't be on the ticket.
"If it's not her I'd be very disappointed. She would have been the perfect fit for him. I think he's going to need someone who's been through the fire," said Suffolk Democratic chairman Richard Schaffer.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said, "New Yorkers win either way. If she becomes vice president, we get more access. If she doesn't, we still have a great senator."
Associated Press and staff writers Tom Brune, Elizabeth Moore and Celeste Hadrick contributed to this story.
Newsday _________________ Blame it on a simple twist of fate. ~ Bob Dylan "To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie." ~ Anya <3
Experience. He's been in the senate for almost 40 years.
Exactly. He's fairly well liked by both sides, and has a lot of experience. McCain needed Obama to make a bad pick, and Obama couldn't have picked better. _________________
Yea, cuz, everybody likes a guy who plagiarizes speeches.. and liked by both sides? Not when he votes 96% of the time with his party. _________________
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Yea, cuz, everybody likes a guy who plagiarizes speeches.. and liked by both sides? Not when he votes 96% of the time with his party.
He is quite liberal, but he's well known and has a ton of experience. Basically everything that conservatives criticize Obama for lacking.. Biden has. Foreign affairs experience, experience in general, an image (by this I mean, before the elections Obama wasn't really particularly well known all around the country), and I think he's a bit more firm than Obama.
This will be interesting, to say the least. _________________
first time i heard it i kinda laughed.
second time i was like o crap this is gonna be a hit, i'm going to hear it waaay too much and get so sick of it.
third time i turned the radio off.
No, that was January 20th, of 2001, remember? Yeah, your party put this country through 4... oh wait, no 8 years of hell after frauding in their candidate.
No, that was January 20th, of 2001, remember? Yeah, your party put this country through 4... oh wait, no 8 years of hell after frauding in their candidate.
Nice try though.
I fail to see where the hell is... but I can see hell in this:
If Al Gore had been elected there would be another 3000 American civilians dead somewhere and we would have all been forced to grow plants in every sq. yard of our property to make the planet 'greener'.
How's your carbon footprint doing Flamingmonkey? _________________
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If Al Gore had been elected there would be another 3000 American civilians dead somewhere and we would have all been forced to grow plants in every sq. yard of our property to make the planet 'greener'.
Why would there be 3000 American civilians dead?
And why is growing plants a bad thing? How are plants hellish?
Unemployment, war, taxes so high that the poor can't afford to live... that, to me, is hell on earth. But that's just my opinion. Pretty plants... not so hellish. _________________ Blame it on a simple twist of fate. ~ Bob Dylan "To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie." ~ Anya <3
If Al Gore had been elected there would be another 3000 American civilians dead somewhere and we would have all been forced to grow plants in every sq. yard of our property to make the planet 'greener'.
Why would there be 3000 American civilians dead?
And why is growing plants a bad thing? How are plants hellish?
Unemployment, war, taxes so high that the poor can't afford to live... that, to me, is hell on earth. But that's just my opinion. Pretty plants... not so hellish.
Unemployment will always be a problem when the Democrats organize big labor unions that want better pay, thereby cutting corporate profits, thereby cutting corporate growth, thereby cutting the amount of jobs out there. Oh, and it's the Democrats who raise taxes baby, rarely is it Republicans.
War. Not such a great thing, but sometimes necessary. Most people would argue that the war in Afghanistan is necessary, most would argue that the war in Iraq is not. The way I see it, another ruthless dictator who killed, imprisoned, and suppressed many of his own people is dead. He spent decades fighting the UN and not allowing inspectors into the country (that could have verified he didn't have weapons of mass destruction) - if he had, we would have never been at war. We knew he at least had chemical weapons though. I fail to see where him still being the leader of a nation is a good thing.
There would be another 3000 civilians dead because Al Qaeda would chew Al Gore up for breakfast and poop him out before bedtime, just like Obama. Al Gore wouldn't have done a damn thing but strike a few 'suspected camps' like Clinton did.
And growing plants was a sarcastic remark at Al Gore's wonderful money making scheme that every environmentalist is so gullible to follow him on. _________________
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I don't think you actually understand what you're talking about when it comes to labor unions. You are aware of the importance of labor unions, correct? They have nothing to do with the high unemployment rate right now. They were put in place to ensure the health, safety, integrity and respect of the employees were maintained. Most people who are unemployed right now have never belonged to labor unions.
Republicans were the ones who gave themselves pay raises, but refused to pass higher minimum wages, which are impossible to live on in most counties in the country. The democrats were the ones who wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to make enough money to survive. The Republicans are only ever out foir themselves and the rich, as they have shown us over and over again. They never try to come up with any way to help the poor and working class and, instead, have managed to veto the very laws and bills that could help them.
You say we would be in a war if Gore was president... lol, at least he would have the decency to legally declare war. Not like Bush who just announced it.
And it is a common theory that they wouldn't have attacked us if Gore had been president. Al Qaeda didn't feel as threatened when the democrats were in office. Do you really think it was just unfortunate that they attacked when Bush got into office? It wasn't just a coincidence. At least when the Towers were hit years ago, Clinton caught the men and they were punished. Bush not only hasn't caught Osama, but he attacked the wrong country. _________________ Blame it on a simple twist of fate. ~ Bob Dylan "To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie." ~ Anya <3
I don't think you actually understand what you're talking about when it comes to labor unions. You are aware of the importance of labor unions, correct? They have nothing to do with the high unemployment rate right now. They were put in place to ensure the health, safety, integrity and respect of the employees were maintained. Most people who are unemployed right now have never belonged to labor unions.
Republicans were the ones who gave themselves pay raises, but refused to pass higher minimum wages, which are impossible to live on in most counties in the country. The democrats were the ones who wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to make enough money to survive. The Republicans are only ever out foir themselves and the rich, as they have shown us over and over again. They never try to come up with any way to help the poor and working class and, instead, have managed to veto the very laws and bills that could help them.
You say we would be in a war if Gore was president... lol, at least he would have the decency to legally declare war. Not like Bush who just announced it.
And it is a common theory that they wouldn't have attacked us if Gore had been president. Al Qaeda didn't feel as threatened when the democrats were in office. Do you really think it was just unfortunate that they attacked when Bush got into office? It wasn't just a coincidence. At least when the Towers were hit years ago, Clinton caught the men and they were punished. Bush not only hasn't caught Osama, but he attacked the wrong country.
You're ridiculous. Do you not remember the WTC bombing? Do you not remember the U.S.S. Cole? That was Al Qaeda attacking us.
Labor unions are hardly fair. They demand absolutely ridiculous things. Fortunately, they don't carry much weight anymore. The democrats have always wanted high taxes on corporations.. and yet you wonder why the minimum wage didn't get raised until recently. Cut corporate taxes, and you'll give companies the ability to pay higher wages. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. John McCain wants to lower the corporate tax rate because he is smart. Obama wants to keep it the same, and then put profits taxes on oil companies at a time when oil prices are already high enough. Clear stupidity on his part.
As for war.. Bush didn't need to ask congress to "declare" it, they authorized him to do it. It just turned into a longer thing that wasn't expected, and so the Democrats abandoned their support so they could get more votes from the people who want us out of Iraq so the 4800 U.S. soldiers that have died there would die in vain. _________________
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You're ridiculous. Do you not remember the WTC bombing? Do you not remember the U.S.S. Cole? That was Al Qaeda attacking us.
Of course I remember it, I referred to it in my post.
Quote:
Labor unions are hardly fair. They demand absolutely ridiculous things.
Good job generalizing.
Quote:
Fortunately, they don't carry much weight anymore.
As a white Christian male, did you ever need one in your life?
Quote:
The democrats have always wanted high taxes on corporations.. and yet you wonder why the minimum wage didn't get raised until recently.
It got raised in NY because Clinton pushed for it. It wasn't raised eariler because there was no money left after the Republicans gave themselves a pay raise.
Quote:
Cut corporate taxes, and you'll give companies the ability to pay higher wages. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. John McCain wants to lower the corporate tax rate because he is smart. Obama wants to keep it the same, and then put profits taxes on oil companies at a time when oil prices are already high enough. Clear stupidity on his part.
Let the rich corporations get richer. How is that smart? They aren't going to use the money to higher more people, they'll only give themse;ves the money, that's all they ever did. That's why they wanted to raise their taxes.
Quote:
As for war.. Bush didn't need to ask congress to "declare" it, they authorized him to do it. It just turned into a longer thing that wasn't expected, and so the Democrats abandoned their support so they could get more votes from the people who want us out of Iraq so the 4800 U.S. soldiers that have died there would die in vain.
As soon as Bush "declared" war on the news, the fact that it wasn't officially asked for was brought up right away. It wasn't like the democrats waited two years to start talking about that fact. He actually said that we were going to war , when no war was declared. And yes, he does need to ask, it's in our Constitution.
Article 1, Section 8 _________________ Blame it on a simple twist of fate. ~ Bob Dylan "To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie." ~ Anya <3
You get on to me about generalizing and then you say I've never needed a labor union because I'm a white Christian male? Yeah.. hypocrisy much? I wasn't generalizing labor unions anyways - nearly all of them make outrageous demands or go on strike. Smart people like Reagan just fire their asses.
You hurt companies' abilities to pay higher wages when you tax them. That's Business 101. Since the Democrats give us the highest corporate tax rates in the world, you can't blame the companies for not raising wages. There's plenty of employee protection out there these days for things, but it's good that companies can still determine wages. The thing is, if they want to keep people around, they will raise wages when they can. It's called competitive wages. Labor will always go somewhere else if they can get paid more. The reason cheap labor isn't getting paid enough is because the corporate tax rate is so high.. and yeah, it hurts even more when the economy is like what it is now.
And don't say Republicans never do anything for the poor when the majority of poorest cities in America, that have neighboring cities that are much better off, have had Democrat mayors for the past 40 years. Champions of the poor my ass. Helping "working class Americans" my ass. It's all a pre-text to get votes and support from people who THINK you're going to help them (oh, wait, that sounds like the same thing that communist parties do). _________________
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Then you're blind. If you can't see hell in a governor frauding his way into the white house, intentionally lying to the American public in order to fulfill his own political ambitions, spending trillions of dollars on a war of lies that depleted the largest surplus this country's ever had and turned it into a monumental deficit, condoning torture and stunting plenty of other human rights for even American citizens, completely destroying the economy, and worsening our oil addiction, then I don't know what kind of eyes you have.
Fiendfyre wrote:
but I can see hell in this:
If Al Gore had been elected there would be another 3000 American civilians dead somewhere and we would have all been forced to grow plants in every sq. yard of our property to make the planet 'greener'.
Proof? Who would've killed 3,000 Americans? The terrorists that we scared off by invading.... oh wait, we didn't invade a country that they had any occupation in. That's right, we invaded a country that had absolutely no ties with Al-Qaeda, and consequently there are many more than 3,000 dead American soldiers.
Gore would not have forced anybody to do much of anything with their property - he was the progressive and Bush was the authoritative in that election.
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