Posted by Jed Lewison on Sat Aug 23, 2008 at 12:01 AM Pacific

The field is set: It's Obama-Biden vs. Bush-McCain

Update: Interesting fact about Joe Biden -- he's got the lowest net worth of any Senator. Compare that to John McCain, who even without Cindy McCain is the 8th wealthiest Senator. As for Romney, Romney would be the wealthiest Senator.

Some random thoughts about the Biden pick:

I think Biden is a good pick, politically speaking. You'll hear a lot about Biden being selected to appeal to "white working-class" voters but really Biden is more about appealing to older white voters (and he doesn't hurt with Catholics). Nate Silver has run all the numbers and they are convincing. Remember, Barack does very well with younger white voters already -- Biden will give him a boost with a demo that he hasn't done as well with.
The GOP attack machine will try two main areas of attack. First, they'll run video from 2007 of Biden saying that Obama wasn't ready to be president. The thing is that this actually gives Biden an opening to explain why and how he changed his mind, and in so doing, he'll speak directly to voters who already don't think Obama is qualified. What I'm saying is that the GOP line of attack won't discourage anyone from voting for Obama, but it given Biden an opening to speak directly to the voters he's supposed to win over. The other line of attack will be Biden's plagiarism, which they will try to tie to Hillary's xerox attack. Our response is easy: McCain stealing from Wikipedia.
When speaking with the media, the response to every attack from the GOP should include some formulation of this campaign is Obama-Biden vs. Bush-McCain.
I don't think we can read much into his selection in policy terms -- after all, Reagan picked Bush in 1980. The big issue is Biden's vote for the AUMF, but in a weird way he actually might be a good contrast with McCain. Both voted for the AUMF, but while McCain pretends to have subsequently stood up to Bush, Biden actually did.
This will sound like a contradiction of my previous point, but I suspect part of the reason Obama picked Biden was because he wants a vice president who knows how Washington works. Above all else, I think Obama's greatest strength is that he understands power, and I think he thinks that as vice president, Biden could help Obama navigate the DC power structures.
I'm really glad Obama didn't pick his primary opponent. Even though it would have been politically advantageous, I think it would have compromised his presidency.
I had horrible timing in releasing my new video "007: GoldenMansion" -- I foolishly thought the announcement wouldn't come until morning, and that I'd be able to launch the video before then. Oops.

Anyway, what do you think of the Biden pick? (And don't forget, make sure you check out "007: GoldenMansion"!)