Poor Joe Biden.  This guy is smart, charismatic, and truly loves his country.  But like our current president, he should never be in a leadership position.  The problem with campaigning politicians is they are forced to talk to people all day.  Eventually they lose control and just start talking nonsense.  McCain has done it, Obama too, Palin is one “Don’t ya know” away from it, and Biden is making a name for being the best.

As Obama’s VP candidate it’s Biden’s job to mirror the Illinois Senator.  The VP has never been an important role; if it was, candidates wouldn’t wait so long to make a decision.  McCain’s left field choice for tasty Palin made the position relevant.  So now everyone cares what the VP thinks.  So now Biden is getting interviewed and not simply traveling to the dead towns of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan to get the blue-collar votes.  No offense to those towns, but we all know why Biden was picked.

Joe “Average American” Biden has recently been fond of placing his foot inside of his mouth.  At a campaign rally, Joe was introduced by a man in a wheelchair.  Joe came out on stage and told the guy to stand up so the audience could clap for him.  Of course being wheelchair bound kind of means one doesn’t have much use of their legs.  Oh well.

My favorite gaff was picked up in the last couple of days after Joe did an interview with Katie Couric.  When asked a question about leadership, Joe responded:

Part of what a leader does is to instill confidence, is demonstrate that he or she knows what they’re talking about and to communicates to people. If you listen to me and follow what I’m suggesting, we can fix this. When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, princes of greed. He said, “look, here’s what happened.”

Obviously the important parts are in bold.  Biden believes a leader should know what they’re talking about and if we listen to Biden and his ideas, then we’ll be good to go.  He cites the leadership of Franklin D Roosevelt going on television after the 1929 crash of the stock market to tell the country what happened.  Great leadership.  But the 14 people that had televisions back in 1929 were probably thinking “Why is the governor of New-York talking to the country, where’s President Hoover?”*  FDR was not president until 1933, the crash was in 1929.  His leadership was admirable during his time in office, but he was not in charge during the initial crash and no one had TVs.  Thankfully Biden wasn’t a history major, it was just political science.  What’s that you say?  He double majored?  Political science and history?  Doh!

Biden is like the cute cuddly guy where you just go “awww at least he tried!”  The problem is Palin is showing to be much more effective as a VP candidate than Biden.  Now the rumors are igniting that Biden will drop out of the race after the first debate, citing health issues.  Who will replace him?  Medusa Hillary Clinton of course!  I’m calling it here, if this happens McCain doesn’t stand a chance of winning.  The Hillary hordes are too much.

If there is one thing I would give Hillary Clinton credit for is she has so much self control I’ve never noticed any type of slip.

And I haven’t forgotten I owe an endorsement, but I’m still waiting for a good debate between the two candidates.

News Busters

*I’m not taking credit for finding this, as the blogosphere caught on to Joe’s quote very quickly.

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1. Weakonomics Weekend Edition: VP of America Edition
2. The Weakonomist Endorses a Candidate: Part II
3. The Flaws of the Clinton Gas Tax Holiday

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