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National View: Staffer Opinion – James Cannon II

In the 2008 election cycle, mismanaged campaigns full of errors, misspeaks and poor use of the news cycle have become the standard rather than the exception.

But the most recent mistakes are the best yet.

According to Sen. John McCain, $5 million is the precipice for being considered rich, and Sen. Barack Obama called for Vladimir Putin to remove Russian troops from Ossetia, Georgia.

Obama was on a private golf course in Hawaii when he made the comment, forgetting for a second the press had a field day with President Bush making foreign policy speeches on a golf course, and merely echoed what every other world leader had stated. To top off his successful foreign policy outing, two weeks later, Russia is still occupying Georgia.

This is why Obama’s announcement of his vice president candidate should come of no surprise.

Not only did Obama completely botch the actual announcement – 3 a.m. text messages to fanatics Saturday morning the weekend before the Democratic National Convention – he completely wasted the amount of press coverage he was assured to get had he announced on a weekday.

The weekend is considered to be the news dumping ground, but the Obama camp had its supporters – Mainstream Media – waiting for the “imminent announcement” since 9 a.m. that Friday.

But the real question is, why pick Delaware’s senior citizen Sen. Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr?

Was Delaware recently considered a swing state or is this simple pandering to McCain’s base of geriatrics?

With the amount of time and man-power put into this decision, it is hard to see this as anything but Obama intentionally sabotaging his own campaign. His strongest asset was that voters saw him as a Washington outsider and identified with his now empty rhetoric of a “different kind of politics.”

Biden, however, is the quintessential Washington insider without one shred of reform - minded politics. During his six terms as a senator, he authored poisonous legislation that created the Drug Czar and the RAVE Act, which allows the government to prosecute business owners if drugs are used on their property.

And more, the senator has been an open critic of Obama’s lack of experience from the beginning.

McCain already completed an ad featuring two clips: Biden praising McCain as someone who transcends political parties and can work across the isle, and Biden during the Democrat primary debates commenting on Obama’s lack of experience and stating he will need “on the job training.”

But most political pundits see this as Obama simply balancing his presidential ticket.

Apparently few are taking into account that Obama balancing his ticket to include someone who chaired the foreign relations committee only underscores his own lack of experience on the subject.

Though this pick brings easy comparisons between President Carter’s vice president pick in 1976, it might not be all bad.

Biden should be very adept in countering McCain’s old-white-guy hawkish charm with his own, barring he discontinues his longstanding practice of speaking without thinking.

E-mail James Cannon II at staff1@unfspinnaker.com.