Posted by Jed Lewison on Sat Aug 23, 2008 at 1:01 PM Pacific

Thoughts on the rollout

Pros:

Obama did a good job of introducing Biden, and Biden did a good job reinforcing Obama's life story.
Obama took tough stance against McCain's "bluster."
Biden is ready and willing to be the attack dog, hammering on the Bush-McCain link, and using the intriguing "good soldier" vs. "wise leader" dichotomy.
Biden had a decent line on McCain's homes, that he's going to have to choose which of his seven kitchen tables to sit down at.

Cons:

There weren't enough references to McCain's homes gaffe. Even though Biden had a decent line about the multiple homes, it was the only reference, and it wasn't terribly well delivered, and I doubt it will become a soundbite.
A commenter had a good line earlier that Barack Obama could and should used in introducing Joe Biden: "He knows how many homes he owns." That's a perfect line for an introduction, and not using something of the sort is a huge and inexcusable missed opportunity. We have to keep on hitting on this to define McCain.
Biden's a bit rusty, but that will resolve itself soon enough.

What are your thoughts?

Update: Is McCain undercutting his own message? Chuck Todd just mentioned (before getting cut off by technical gremlins) that McCain's attacks on Obama-Biden are 180 degrees opposite from their pre-Biden attacks. Now they are attacking Obama for picking someone who criticized him in the past, but up until this point, the McCain attacks had been that Obama was a "celebrity" who only surrounded himself with a "fan club."

Update 2: MSNBC just replayed Biden's "McCain's 7 kitchen tables" soundbite. It played much better as a soundbite than I thought it would, so there might not be as much to worry about on the houses gaffe as I had initially thought.

Update 3: I just spoke with my grandpa who is impressed with how swiftly the Obama campaign has refocused its message on the middle class. And I just heard the kitchen tables soundbite replayed again. Okay, I'll admit that I probably was a bit too worried. I'll blame it on ghosts of campaign's past.

Update 4: Okay, I've now seen the "kitchen tables" played 4 times on cable. I was wrong. It happens. :)