Today in Politico they highlight Biden’s apparent break with Obama on “clean coal”, an issue no one gives a shit about anyway, in the big scheme of things.
However, it comes on the heels of Obama publicly rebuking Biden over his stand on the bailout and the lovely Biden comment that he thought the McCain “out of touch” commercial was “terrible” and he wouldn’t have run it had he known about it.
The polls are still tight, but the “Bradley effect” is being cited as very real and very deadly to Obama’s prospects. If it’s tied in the polls, this thinking goes, Obama is going to be defeated in a statistical bloodbath of 4-6% (Bush beat Kerry by 1.5%) which could kill the down-ticket Dems by association with such a loser.
Also, some shoes are about to drop. Number one, the MSM, which has been assiduously avoiding the Ayers-Obama connexion may have to take notice after high-profile stories by Kurtz begin to percolate through the public and the blogs.
There are reports that McCain’s team is ready to really take the gloves off, and not in the way the effete Obama does, but with a blistering set of ads that feature the colourful Reverend Wright.
These developments (plus the very real probability Obama will do poorly in the debates, where he must go unscripted and uncoached by his handlers) mean desperation and that means extraordinary measures. He has never had a particularly good debate, and his few one on ones with Clinton were nearly disastrous for him. Had ne not been so far ahead in delegates, they might have allowed Clinton to climb back into the lead.
So, speaking of Clinton, is she going to be called in to take the #2 spot as Obama’s only hope for pulling out a meager win? No candidate team at the top of the ticket has done the sort of public arguing Obama and Biden are currently showcasing, although they are not doing it directly. The sheer number of conflicts and gaffes is becoming a story. Biden’s gaffe yesterday which mirrored Hillary’s sniper story was almost lost in the other gaffes coming down the pike, one after another.
Add all this to Palin’s headlining huge crowds versus Obama’s waning star power and you have the need for Obama to pull a game-changing stunt. Polls are showing that Obama is still not closing the gap in wooing Clinton supporters who now back McCain.
Would it work? Hard to say, but when you are down and heading for defeat there is no downside to shaking things up and hoping when they come back together you are in the lead. McCain proved that.
What has been seen as a long-shot since the Biden pick was named seems more and more plausible daily. The latest rumors have it happening after the vice-presidential debates, which makes us think that perhaps a choreographed Biden “gaffe” will make it appear that Obama is perfectly justified in dropping the motor-mouthed Senator, who never seemed like an easy fit from the beginning.
If Obama can make it appear that Biden is dragging the ticket down, it would appear reasonable to drop him, even if it caused Obama to take a hit on the “judgment” issue.
UPDATE: Another minor Biden gaffe that would be broadcast far and wide had Gov. Palin said it:
Biden garbles Depression history
Joe Biden’s denunciation of his own campaign’s ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by.
He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden told Couric. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”
As Reason’s Jesse Walker footnotes it: “And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, ‘Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?’”
Then Joe went on to explain how after President Abe Lincoln wrote the Declaration of Independence, he got right on the internet and blogged about it.