Joe Biden on Fire

Sen. Joe Biden Addresses the DNC

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Clintons4McCain founder & PUMA gets smacked down on Hardball

Obama’s 2.9 million texts create online frenzy

from the Christian Science Monitor’s The Vote Blog

By Jimmy Orr

Obama’s now-legendary text message announcing the selection of vice presidential candidate Joe Biden has been discussed ad nauseum — including here.

Why bring it up again? We know now just how many text messages were sent out.

The folks over at Nielsen tell us that 2.9 million texts were sent out. It sounds impressive. And according to Nielsen, it is:

“The V.P. message was sent in the late hours of Friday night and is, by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event in the U.S. to date,” a release from Nielsen read. “While much has been said of the timing and the scoop by news outlets, Obama’s V.P. text-message still ranks as one of the most important text messages ever sent and one of the most successful brand engagements using mobile media.”

Online political pundits agree. This was a success. And if you signed up, get ready for more says the Obama campaign. Nick Shapiro, a spokesman at the Obama campaign told ABC News:

“Moving forward, we’re going to continue to keep our supporters engaged with our valuable two-way communication tool,” he said

This valuable two-way communications tool spawned an enormous amount of media coverage, not to mention the viral conversation it started.

The Obama text underground…

The text event generated a life of its own. Enter “Obama text message” into Google and 983,000 results pop up. It’s a lot of reading but, in short, there are forums, web pages, articles, and even videos discussing the issue.

One of the most entertaining is an account of a fictitious lawsuit against the Obama campaign from an unemployed bricklayer named Manley Scott. In the fictitious (repeated for emphasis) account, Scott didn’t receive the text and filed suit. The article comes complete with fictitious quotes from Senator McCain and FOX News anchor Sean Hannity:

“First he says he’ll send Manley a text message, then he changes his mind and doesn’t,” said Sean Hannity of Fox News, “this kind of flip flopping is proof Obama is not ready to be President.”

“Textgate is a classic example of why Obama is not fit to be commander in chief,” said John McCain from one of his many houses. “When we should be bombing Iran, he would be fiddling with one of those new fangled cell phones, trying to order some arugula.”

Joe Biden in Springfield, Illinois – August 23, 2008

Meet Joe Biden

Obama-Biden Web site on sale for $100,000

From CNN’s Josh Levs

(CNN) – The Obama campaign has succeeded partly through astute, unprecedented use of the Internet. But some of the most obvious Web site domain names for the Obama-Biden ticket might not actually belong to the campaign anytime soon — if ever.

After hearing about Obama’s selection for his number-two slot, anyone who tried to surf to obamabiden.org was re-directed to an eBay page selling that domain name for a starting bid of $100,000.

As of 6:30 p.m. ET, there were no bids listed.

The same seller lists 15 similar domain names up for sale, including obama-biden.com, obama-biden.org, and obamabiden-08.com.

Though the seller does not list his name on the ebay site, he does list it as public information at godaddy.com, where he purchased the site. That site shows that Luke Freudenberg bought the site back in December.

Freudenberg — whose city of residence is listed at both godaddy.com and eBay.com — did not immediately respond to a message sent via ebay or phone messages left on a work number. He does not have a home number publicly listed.

Perhaps the most obvious site for an Obama-Biden ticket, obamabiden.com, is owned by someone else.

Lyle Dean bought that site back in 2006. He also owns obamabiden2008.com.

On Friday, he told CNN’s Abbi Tatton in an e-mail exchange that he has had no offers, but “numerous media inquiries.”

Dean called himself an “enthusiastic supporter” of the Obama-Biden ticket.

“I can tell you that Joe Biden gets it” – Barack Obama

from “Obama and Biden Come Out Swinging”-By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY, New York Times

“I can tell you that Joe Biden gets it,” said Obama, gazing across a sea of thousands of people. “He’s that unique public servant who is at home in a bar in Cedar Rapids and the corridors of the Capitol; in the VFW hall in Concord, and at the center of an international crisis.”

“That’s because he is still that scrappy kid from Scranton who beat the odds; the dedicated family man and committed Catholic who knows every conductor on that Amtrak train to Wilmington,” Barack said.

Biden and McCain, Rivals Again

from the Washingtonpost.com

By Michael D. Shear, Paul Kane and Jonathan Weisman
By selecting Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate, Barack Obama has picked a Senate colleague who has a long and friendly rivalry with Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.

From their perches on the leading foreign policy committees, Biden and McCain have shadowboxed across the globe, building reputations as experts in their respective parties on war and peace.

But their clash over the direction of the war in Iraq — and now the prospect of a high-stakes political campaign this fall — has strained that collegial relationship, leaving both men more than willing to do battle with the other.

“He has respect for McCain but he’ll be the first to angered by the sort of cheap shots they’re throwing at Obama now,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who predicted that Biden will relish the role of playing a lead attack dog on McCain.

Over the years, Biden and McCain have traveled broadly, often returning from war zones to spar with each other on the Sunday morning talk shows. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee, Biden visited Iraq more than 7 times; McCain has returned to Iraq eight times as the senior Republican on the Armed Services committee.

The result was a rivalry — and a friendship — built on respect, people in both parties said. In 2005, Biden told comedian Jon Stewart that “John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend. I would be honored to run with or against John McCain because I think the country
would be better off.”

Asked in 1999 what he would do on the first day of his presidency, McCain said he would “call in Joe Biden and John Kerry and Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carl Levin and like-minded Republicans” for a frank discussion about the need for a bipartisan foreign policy.

“They actually have a long and good relationship. They’re friends,” a senior Biden aide said Saturday morning.

McCain called his colleague early Saturday morning to congratulate him, aides said. In his first speech as Obama’s running mate, Biden acknowledged that McCain is “genuinely a friend of mine” before proceeding to blast his friend for being a wholehearted backer of the Bush-McCain policies that Biden said threaten the future.

That friendship dates back decades, to the time that a young John McCain served as a staffer to senators like Biden. It was then, McCain has said, that he first wanted to become a member of Congress.

In a biography of McCain, author Robert Timberg wrote that “McCain was much in demand for overseas escort duty…He was fun to be around, his wit appealing, his natural exuberance infectious. In an Athens taverna he danced on a table with Senator Joseph Biden’s wife, Jill, a red bandanna clenched in his teeth.”

Later, as senators, the pair sometimes joined forces, especially on military and foreign policy matters. In 1999, a “McCain-Biden” bill would have authorized President Bill Clinton to use “all necessary force,” including ground troops, in Yugoslavia.

Democrats and the Republican Senate leadership opposed the bill as too broad and too open-ended, and rejected it, but the partnership was an example of their willingness to work collaboratively.

Biden and McCain both have sons in the military, giving each a personal connection to the war they see so differently. McCain’s son, Jimmy is a Marine who served in Iraq until Feburuary. Biden’s son, Beau, a reserve officer who is the Attorney General of Delaware, reports to Iraq in October.

They are also both shaped by tragedy. McCain spent five-and-a-half years in a Vietnamese prison after being captured when his plane was shot down. Biden’s wife and infant daughter were killed in an auto accident shortly after his first election.

On a lighter note, both Biden and McCain were among the most frequent guests on Don Imus’ radio show, often heaping praise on each other. During one show in 2006, Biden was effusive about McCain’s efforts to stop the Bush Administration’s torture policy.

“You know, I mean, thank God for John McCain in saying, whoa, what are you guys talking about?,” Biden told Imus.

But that friendship is likely to be strained further during the
upcoming election, as Biden is tasked by Obama to attack McCain. It is a task he had already begun even before being picked.

In April, Biden gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he said there is “no daylight between John McCain and George Bush. They are joined at the hip.”

In the speech, he called McCain “a man I greatly admire, a man I consider a personal and close friend.” But he went on to slam what he called a “myopic” view of foreign policy and said that “fundamental change” will require “more than a great soldier. It’s going to require a wise leader.”

Last month, in another speech, Biden accused McCain of “profound confusion” and “twisted logic” on the fight against terrorism and urged him to “study history” on the subject.

It is on terrorism and Iraq that there are likely to be the greatest clashes.

Both supported the authorization for war in Iraq, though Biden argues he was trying to give Bush the strongest hand possible force United Nations weapons inspectors back in. After the invasion, Biden preceded McCain in arguing for additional troops.

But in 2006, the two broke irrevocably. With sectarian violence spiraling, Biden argued that 500,000 troops wouldn’t bring peace if the Iraqis couldn’t reconcile.

Since then, they have traveled separately and returned with
opposite conclusions. About the time McCain earned criticism walking around a Baghdad Market in a flak jacket and offering a rosy assessment, Biden was marooned in Fallujah in a sand storm. Stuck in a room with Iraqi politicians, he was struck by the discord and lack of
will to reconcile.

Staff researchers Alice Crites and Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.

Wired Mag: Biden Good on Civil Liberties, Friendly to Hollywood

from Wired

By Sarah Lai Stirland

Barack Obama’s campaign finally texted his choice for vice president in the wee hours of Saturday morning: As reported, he’s chosen Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate.

Though he’s known best for his foreign policy credentials, the 66-year-old senator’s work on the Senate Judiciary Committee has put him in the middle of most of the defining issues of the internet age — epic fights over intellectual property, privacy and antitrust law.

The role of the vice president in influencing an administration’s tone and policy varies with the character of the executive teams occupying the White House, but as Al Gore demonstrated while Bill Clinton’s vice president, there are plenty of opportunities for the veep to push specific items to the top of the  agenda.

“They can be a thought leader, a convener, a driver of national strategy, an exhorter to industry,” said Larry Irving, a former adviser to the Clinton White House, earlier this week.

Biden, a 30-plus-year veteran of the senate, has been a strong supporter of civil liberties. Most recently, he diverged from Obama’s position when he voted in July against a controversial bill that legalized President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. The legislation also provided legal immunity to the telecommunications providers subjected of dozens of lawsuits for participating in the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.

And during the fall 2005 senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Biden grilled Roberts in his views of privacy in the high-tech age — an issue Biden said was of equal importance to Roe v. Wade.

But Biden’s most-recent reputation in D.C. on telecom issues is more ambiguous, particularly when it comes to net neutrality. Though he ostensibly supported the concept as a presidential candidate during this election cycle, in hearings on Capitol Hill he’s been a hesitant supporter for pro net-neutrality legislation.

On the intellectual property front, Biden doesn’t seem to have strayed from the rest of the judiciary committee democrats’ stance of being more of a friend to Hollywood than to Silicon Valley.

Like many other members of congress, on the relatively infrequent occasions when he does talk about intellectual property, his focus is on piracy. He co-chairs the congressional international anti-piracy caucus. Earlier this year, the group fingered specific trading partners, countries where it said digital-copyright piracy had reached “alarming levels.” The group of countries included China, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Greece and Spain.

The group didn’t recommend any specific sanctions against the countries, but Biden repeated an often-heard line on the Hill at the time.

“Our ideas, our music, our books, our movies, our innovations are just as precious as any tangible property,” he said. “With new technologies coming out at warp speed, this global problem will only get worse.”

Back in 2002, Biden also authored a controversial anti-counterfeiting bill that was amended to include a draconian provision that would have made it a de facto crime to replicate a digital-rights management under any circumstances. Critics decried the idea because they said it would crimp individuals’ ability to play their media on devices of their choosing. Violators of the law would have faced prison sentences of up to five years and civil penalties of up to $25,000.

Though he might be known for his foreign policy credentials, Biden often is no diplomat.

As Slate‘s John Dickerson joked in a recent Twitter post, Obama might introduce the senator from Delaware and explain his pick by saying that he’s a “clean and articulate” and “a nice-looking guy.”

Biden caused a furor in February 2007 when he was quoted on Obama by The New York Observer.

At the time, he said: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

Biden subsequently apologized for the remark.

But when they’re timed right, his blunt remarks can also be a riot. During the CNN YouTube debate last July, when asked about what they liked about the candidate next to them, Biden quipped that he didn’t like anything about Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.

Then he added: “But the thing I like about him most is his wife.”

Kucinich is married to 31-year-old Elizabeth Kucinich, who’s six foot tall and made a striking impression on the campaign trail with her long red hair and good looks.

In an obvious ploy to build its databases of voter contact information, the Obama campaign promised that it would let supporters know about his vice presidential pick via text message.

The campaign has drawn out the release of its announcement for so long that some people started to prank each other with fake texting announcements.

Twitter became an often hilarious watercooler network of Obama VP pick jokes as people frittered away their Friday wondering who it would be.

“Just warning you Obama, if your txt wakes me up I’ll be much less enthusiastic about your veep choice,” tweeted Joel Davis late Friday night.

The warning, it turned out, was prescient: Obama texted his choice for Biden at 3 am Saturday morning East Coast time.

The message urged supporters to watch the first Obama-Biden rally at 3 pm Eastern on Barackobama.com.