The legacy of Geraldine Ferraro was supposed to be that no one would ever go on a blind date with history again. But that crazy maverick John McCain has done it, and conservatives and evangelicals are rallying around him in admiration of his cynical choice of Sarah Palin, an evangelical Protestant and anti-abortion crusader.
The Obama campaign had prepared lines of attack directed at the two men thought to be the most likely Republican vice-presidential picks — former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota — but had not considered Ms. Palin a likely enough choice to do the same for her.
For weeks, Senator McCain had wanted to name independent Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut as his running mate. But the outrage from Christian conservatives over the possibility that the Republican ticket would be filled out with a supporter of abortion rights became too intense to be ignored.
This week was a week of number twos on a variety of fronts. In the US, Joe Biden became Barack Obama’s new sidekick, while in Australia, the minor parties in the Senate geared up to take on their new roles as second fiddles. Meanwhile, in the entertainment world, ‘Stargate Atlantis’ was cancelled and replaced by ‘Stargate Universe’.
Senator Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, confirmed that he was picking Biden, a 65-year-old six-term senator from Delaware, early on Friday morning. The choice may be more difficult to swallow for Senator Clinton’s most ardent supporters, especially after it was revealed that she had not even been vetted for the job.
Senator Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq — Senator Obama opposed it from the start — Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of President George W. Bush’s policies in Iraq.
The selection process for Senator Obama’s running mate has been so secretive that most people in his campaign headquarters still did not know what was going on Friday evening. Democrats were not ruling out the possibility that Mr. Obama could surprise the party with a choice other than Senator Biden.
As intense as the anticipation over Barack Obama’s choice is, it pales next to the hubbub over whether John McCain is going to tap Joe Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. This would give Lieberman a unique niche in American history — one politician who was the vice-presidential nominee for both parties. We would speak of it with awe, like that story about the two-headed turtle in Brooklyn.
Indeed, a recent New York Times/CBS News poll of convention delegates found that 28 percent preferred Senator Clinton for vice president — by far the largest bloc supporting a candidate. Now if only the two former rivals could get past … oh, where to begin?
Senator Obama’s advisers said the candidate all but reached his decision while on vacation in Hawaii. They said the nomination process was unexpectedly intense, and was condensed because Mr. Obama did not want to start actively vetting potential running mates before Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton quit the race in June.