Agent of Change?

Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence (AP)

A statesman known for slips of his tongue

Eamon Javers, Jonathan MartinSat Aug 23, 2:44 AM ET

Forget the idea that opposition researchers got cracking the very moment that Sen. Barack Obama announced Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate—they’ve long been poring over his records and background, and those of all the most likely vice-presidential picks.

For all that, though, the likeliest attacks in Biden are all matters of public record, and often problems of his own making.

Biden, who dropped out of the 1988 Democratic primary after he was accused of lifting sections of his stump speech about his humble origins from British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock, more recently took heat in 2006, when he said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

This year, he managed to blow up his official announcement he was entering the race when he deemed Obama “the first mainstream African American [candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

Reporters and opposition researchers are already salivating at the verbal grenades yet to be launched.

More substantively, Biden supported the 2002 resolution that authorized the war in Iraq—a resolution that Obama opposed and, in the primaries at least, painted as “the most important foreign-policy decision in a generation.”

Biden was on the wrong side of that thinking, by Obama’s lights. In 2002, he said that America had “no choice but to eliminate” Saddam Hussein.

While preparing for his own run at the party’s nomination last year, he took several shots at Obama’s inexperience, warning that “If the Democrats think we’re going to be able to nominate someone who can win without that person being able to table unimpeachable credentials on national security and foreign policy, I think we’re making a tragic mistake.”
When Obama gave a speech saying he’d send troops into Pakistan if he had actionable intelligence and the Pakistani government was unwilling to act, Biden told NPR that “It’s a well-intentioned notion he has, but it’s a very naïve way of thinking how you’re going to conduct foreign policy,” adding of his then-rival, in a remark Republicans are sure to revive, “Having talking points on foreign policy doesn’t get you there.”

Biden also said last year of his now running mate, that “I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.” He may also see clips from his 1988 presidential run, when he ran an ad in which the narrator warns:

”The White House isn't a place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power... the economic future of the next generation,'' the narrator of Biden's 1988 ad for the Democratic nomination said. "The president has got to know the territory.”

Biden, 65, came to Congress at the age of 30, meaning he’s spent more than half his life in the institution, which Republicans will surely charge makes him an unsuitable running mate for a candidate of change.

Another moment likely to be re-used against him is his August 2, 2005 Daily Show appearance where Jon Stewart asked him of a potential 2008 run, “You may end up going against a Senate colleague, perhaps McCain, perhaps Frist?”

Biden replied, “John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off — be well off no matter who...”

First elected to the Senate at the tender age of 29, Biden has now spent more than half his life there, which cuts against Obama’s change message, even as it insulates the first-term Illinois Senator from charges that he’s too green for the White House.

Biden has accepted $5,133,072 in contributions from lawyers and lobbyists since 2003. Obama does not accept contributions from federally registered lobbyists.

And he has one other weakness that hasn't received much attention to date. One of Biden's sons, Hunter, is a registered Washington lobbyist in a year in which Obama has been excoriating lobbyists and the culture of corruption in Washington. The younger Biden is a name partner at the firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, LLP, and seems to have specialized in lobbying for just the kind of earmark spending by Congress that Obama has vowed to slash. Republican insiders say the party is likely to make an issue of Biden's family lobbying ties.

Also expect to hear more about Biden's close ties with credit card companies. His largest contributor (based on total contributions by employees) over the past five years has been MBNA, the Delaware-based bank aquired in 2005 by Bank of America than until then was the world's largest independent credit card issuer and a major supporter of the 2005 bankruptcy bill that Biden crossed the aisle to support.

Top five donors (including employee donations):
MBNA Corp. (Delaware-based bank acquired in 2005 by Bank of America)
Pachulski, Stang et al. (law firm with major Delaware officers)
Young, Conaway et al. (large Delaware law firm)
Law Office of Peter Angelos (mid-Atlantic trial law firm)
Simmons Cooper LLC (national trial law firm)

Top five industry group contributors:
Lawyers/law firms
Real estate
Retired
Securities & investment
Miscellaneous finance