All About Obama

Another round of veep-vetting. Salon's Walter Shapiro has a soft spot for Joe Biden:

"Obama must answer two questions to woo wavering voters during the run-up to the Democratic Convention. The easy one -- 'Who are you?' -- undergirds everything from biographical TV ads to the acceptance speech fireworks in Denver. The trickier question for Obama as a new-generation Democrat is, 'How will you govern?' That cannot be answered with gauzy media imagery and inspirational rhetoric. The tenor of an Obama administration will be suggested, more than anything, by his vice-presidential choice."

Biden, he says, is "one of the leading foreign-policy figures in the Democratic Party. For a would-be president like Obama, who would enter the Oval Office facing the challenge of prudently withdrawing from Iraq, Biden's long-standing proposal to acknowledge reality and divide the country into semi-autonomous Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions may have appeal. (Salon conducted a lengthy foreign-policy interview with Biden before the Iowa caucuses.) Granted, Biden, who never served in the military (he failed his draft physical during the Vietnam War), cannot play the macho-man war-hero card like Virginia Sen. Jim Webb. But his son Beau Biden, the attorney general of Delaware, will be deploying to Iraq this fall with his national guard unit.

"Despite the dismal results in Iowa, Biden was a spirited campaigner and an adroit, if sometimes loquacious, debater."

Speaking of debates, here's one over Mitt Romney. First, Jonathan Cohn says Romney makes sense because he's "squeaky clean: He's been fully vetted, not just by the national press during the Republican primaries but, before that, by the always-[aggressive] Boston press during his years as governor. Aside from that story about strapping the dog to the roof--yes, the image sticks, but people will get over it--Romney seems to have nothing in his past that would come back to haunt McCain's general election campaign.

"But there are also other factors that recommend Romney, starting with his expertise on economic policy."

In rebuttal, Eve Fairbanks:

"As mega-finance firms like the Blackstone Group and Countrywide come to be seen as villains in our economic slump, I think Romney's CEO manner and private equity background (the private equity firms, remember, were the ones who were splashily accused last summer of exploiting a tax loophole) could be received by your average voter with as much suspicion as warmth . . .

"But Romney's less than squeaky clean in another way: During the primaries, he proved himself perhaps the most deliciously mockable mainstream Republican candidate this side of Lamar Alexander."

And a mystery candidate has surfaced:

"Rep. Chet Edwards was coy Tuesday about whether he has talked with the Barack Obama campaign about a No. 2 spot on the ticket a week after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi singled him out as the best House member for the job."

The Texas Democrat seems to have served his nine terms in almost total obscurity.