Biden for VP

Barack Obama yesterday choose Biden as his running mate. Although there were many good quality candidates he could have chosen, I do think this was a good choice, even it wouldn't have been my first choice. Ideally, the VP pick should compensate for whatever areas the presidential candidate is weak in and Biden certainly does this. His experience on foreign policy will make it harder for McCain to attack Obama on this. Besides, even if Obama is less experienced on foreign policy than McCain, his political instincts here are a lot better than McCain's. McCain seems to be good at promoting a foreign policy that benefits the US, but not others whereas Obama and Biden both support a foreign policy that benefits both the United States and the rest of the world, not the United States at the expense of others. Also Biden comes from a working class background and this could help Obama appeal to the white blue collar workers which he has struggled with so far. If he wishes to pick up Ohio and likewise hold Michigan and Pennsylvania, this is a key group he needs to do well amongst. As for the current poll numbers, they are not exactly encouraging, but the reality is there are more Americans who are philosophically in line with the Republicans than Democrats so winning is going to always be a challenge for Democrats. According to a strategic counsel poll recently, 51% of Canadians identified themselves as Liberal and 41% Conservative, whereas in the US it was 57% Conservative and 37% Liberal, which could explain why the Liberals here have to mess up a lot more than the Tories to lose and likewise the Republicans have to mess up a lot more in the US to lose than the Democrats. Usually the VP picks and conventions tend to give each party a bounce, so will have to see who gets the larger bounce here. Right now neither McCain or Obama has been able to crack the 50% mark, whereas I suspect after the Labour Day weekend, one of them will crack it and hopefully that is Obama. Another challenge the Democrats face too as the demographic that leans Democrat (working class, urban, African-American, Latino, young, single) tend to have a lower voter turnout that the demographic that leans Republican (white male, religious, suburban/rural, middle-upper income, married with children). Much like Canada, a higher turnout should benefit the Democrats as opposed to a lower one, so the main thing for Obama will be getting those who normally abstain from voting but like his policies to show up. The only demographic that usually votes Democrat that has a high turnout are those with high incomes living in large urban centres with a post-graduate degree, but that group is not particularly large in terms of their total share of the population.

In other news, it looks more and more likely like we will have a federal election. I do believe that we need one to put an end to Harper's obstructionist tactics and arrogance, however if Harper decides to ignore the law he passed on fixed election dates and goes and dissolves parliament without being defeated in a non-confidence vote, I hope the opposition parties raise this many times throughout the campaign. This would be the height of arrogance and maybe what it would take to see him defeated. I plan to work on Gerard Kennedy's campaign myself who is running in Parkdale-High Park which although I don't actually live in the riding it begins only a few blocks west of where I live (I am in Trinity-Spadina).

On the brighter side, Canada had a great finish to the olympics. After a lousy first week with no medals, we more than made up for that by winning 18 medals which tied what we got in Barcelona in 1992 and only fell short of what we got in 1996 in Atlanta (I don't count 1984 in Los Angeles as these were boycotted by many countries). Add to the fact we had 12 fourth place finishes, many by only a fraction of a second shows we have great potential to do well in 2012. Also of the countries who got more medals than we did, only Cuba, Belarus, and Australia have smaller populations. I don't think we will finish ahead of the Aussies in the medal standings anytime soon (at least not in the summer olympics), but hopefully in 2012, Australia will be the only country smaller than Canada to have more medals than us. In 2010 I am hoping for Canada to come in first and considering we came in third in Turin, I think this is doable. Although I no longer live in Vancouver, I definitely plan on attending the olympics.