Monday, January 11, 2010

Can I call em or what?

Earlier I said that the now infamous picture of Obama and Biden together showed Obama absolutely dripping with contempt for his choice for vice president.  Others said that the President looked tired.  Well yeah, if they meant that he was tired of listening to Biden's never closed yap.  Consider this from Pundette:

"Joe and Obama barely spoke"

From Game Changer via Politico:

“A chill set in between Chicago and the Biden plane,” Halperin and Heilemann write in the book, to be released Monday. “Joe and Obama barely spoke by phone, rarely campaigned together.”

And when Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was asked about having Biden dial into the nightly campaign conference call, he responded: “Nah.” Instead, Biden had his own call with Plouffe and senior campaign adviser David Axelrod.

Obama himself was growing increasingly frustrated with his running mate after Biden let loose with a string of gaffes, including a statement that paying higher taxes amounted to patriotism and criticism of one of the campaign’s own ads poking fun at John McCain.

But when Biden, at an October fund-raiser in Seattle, famously predicted that Obama would be tested with an international crisis, the then-Illinois senator had had enough.

“How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?” he demanded of his advisers on a conference call, a moment at which most people on the call said the candidate was as angry as they had ever heard him.

For his part, the authors write, Biden wasn’t pleased with the campaign’s direction.

After a prep session for a “Meet the Press” appearance following the Democratic convention, Biden was incredulous when he was briefed by campaign aides about the ticket’s tax policy. He told them: “Well, it’s your campaign. I’ll say what you want me to say. But after Election Day, all bets are off.”

Following his campaign plane braggadocio about being more qualified than the man who put him on the ticket, Biden’s access to the press was limited and he grilled new staffers that were assigned to him to try and determine if they were part of his team or loyal to Chicago.
I've always felt that Obama and Biden make one very odd couple.  Biden, to be kind, is affable in a silly, cloddish way.  He says whatever pops in to his head, appropriate or not.  Obama on the other hand is stiff and formal.  He is a man who weighs his words and while he has pulled some oratorical boners, he emits a confidence that allows him to rise above his gaff rather than being defined by them as Biden has been.

I can't imagine Obama and Biden liking each other.  Heck, I can't even imagine them respecting each other.
Pundette opines that Obama may have chosen Biden as a comic foil.  I get that but I doubt Obama does a lot of laughing.

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