I packed for Denver still hoping for Hillary. I'd never seen a major campaign miss a move this obvious. But unable to reconcile himself or many of his supporters to the idea Obama at least went with a very plausible alternative.
Joe Biden adds experience, foreign policy expertise, a certain old slipper familiarity, at least to Washington types, and when he isn't in full-throttle-expound mode, a pleasant almost folksy charm. A Scranton born Catholic, he helps in states where Obama got swept in the primaries and that he must now sweep in the general election.
If Biden can get the whole ready, aim, fire thing in the right order he'll be a great running mate. His warmth complements and calms. There's still excitement in Obama's base but restiveness in other places; in a few, even creeping despondency.
It's all overdone. There's cause for concern, but certainly not alarm. Bill Clinton trailed heading into his first convention. Of fourteen presidential races since World War II, five had margins of 2% or less. In the four we call landslides--`56, `64, `72 and `84-- the loser got 40% of the vote. In presidential elections, close calls are the rule, not the exception.
Still, we're in a dead heat when all other signs would point to a landslide: The middle class is being slowly hollowed out. The so called 'Republican brand' has been taken off the shelves. McCain makes Bob Dole look like Justin Timberlake. So what gives?
For two months Obama's campaign has played like a listless sequel to a lame summer flick; the God fearing Republican 'populist' versus the pampered Democratic elitist; NASCAR v. Fauntleroy. I've not only seen this movie-- I've been in it. Unless someone calls rewrite fast, you'll hate the ending.
The real culture wars ended years ago. Everyone agreed: liberals had more fun in college, conservatives have made more money ever since; why not just call it a tie and get on with the business of living.
Today's culture wars are a Republican cottage industry. They lie dormant for three years, then come to life just in time for a presidential election. How effective are they? Three times Republicans made America think some hapless Democrat was more elitist than the Bushes.
This time out, their guy's an admiral's son; wed to an heiress; proud owner of eleventy seven homes. Our guy's an ex-community organizer, raised by a single mom, married to a gal from Chicago's South Side. And the elitist is? Oh, you heard.
Obama will use his convention to counter these themes. It' a big job and his team is new: for many it isn't just their first time at the rodeo; it's their first time on a horse. Still, they've done fine up to now, and have tons of experience handling big crowds.
Obama can't treat his problems as if they were merely thematic. Democrats regard specificity as a form of extremism. We're so frightened of being tagged as liberals by Karl Rove we end up being rejected by voters for standing for nothing at all.
An April 2007 profile in the New York Times magazine depicted David Axelrod as thinking Democrats lose because they get mired down in issues. It said he wanted a new politics of biography.
I wondered then if Axelrod missed "The Man from Hope" or Lieutenant Kerry reporting for duty. I wondered too where all those issue soaked Democrats had been hiding. If Axelrod knows where they are, now would be a good time to ring them up.
Many opposed Hillary Clinton because they wanted to move beyond Clintonism, to enact the systemic changes Bill Clinton talked about but couldn't deliver, to send corporate interests packing; to resume sensible economic regulation and the fight for social justice.
It's time for Obama to call McCain out. The Iraq war was driven by oil and testosterone, the other fossil fuel. It's time America learned that acting like a man means acting like an adult. If it's too much to ask in our personal lives we can start with foreign policy; which means not hiring another spoiled, belligerent frat boy to be commander in chief.
Fear works till you name it; culture wars only in a vacuum. Obama must now stand up like Democrats did in their glory days, as a tribune for working people and a defender of the public interest--and he must tell us how he'll do it: prove to us that the change we can believe in is the change we need. Biden can help.