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7:57 - I’m trying to visualize the Vice Presidential debate. My only fear is that Joe Biden will come of as too chauvinist. It’s almost like a setup, where something he says will come out as being offensive to Palin. Kinda like how John Edwards comment about Cheney’s lesbian daughter became the big story about the VP debate in 2004. We shall see.

7:50 - Crowd sounds loud, but then I look, and it looks so timid. This feels like the country fair versus Obama’s professional Disneyland. Well, maybe that’s nit the best analogy.

7:45 - My first impression - she’s a good speaker. Reminds of a mean elementary school teacher, one whom I can just tell doesn’t really know anything except how to talk with authority.

Does that make me a sexist?

7:30 pm - Rudy recap. So all three of the losers came out, though I don’t recall hearing anything about
“party unity” here.

7:26 pm - Doesn’t this speech feel like nothing more than the reshashing of a Hillary Clinton speech? None of the barbs against Obama are fresh, and as a result, they won’t get picked up by the national narrative.

I’m heading to a Democratic Party event tonight to watch Obama’s historic convention speech. Photos and more tomorrow, but tonight, let’s enjoy history being made.

Conversely, I’m really confused by John McCain’s latest TV ad.

It’s 2pm here in on the West Coast now. About 14 hours since I found out that Joe Biden was going to be the VP pick. While I was disappointed at first - holding out for Wesley Clarke, Brian Schweitzer or Kathleen Sebelius, I’ve already started to grow from it. And it reminder me of this from my days volunteering for Barack Obama in Iowa.

Joe Biden. Of all the candidates, he always seemed to be the most bitter about Barack Obama. At the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner, he started his speech with this condescending remark.

“Hello Iowa and hello Chicago.”

My immediate thought - not an Iowan but not from Chicago either, and surrounded by fellow Iowans - was “shut up asshole.”

However, I did notice one thing about Biden. Off all the candidates, him and Barack were the two straight talkers. And on that case, Biden did beat Barack - he spoke what was on his mind, unfiltered by talking points. To many, this has been his greatest weakness, but as I found out, it made him a formidable opponent.

So much so that, heading into caucus night, the candidate I was most worried about pulling a surprise was not Hillary Clinton or John Edwards, but Joe Biden.

Though it may not show up in the numbers, Joe Biden was, unquestionable, surging in the weeks before caucus night. In a campaign where people were looking for authenticity, Joe Biden was emerging as the only true competitor to Barack Obama for new voters. I wrote about this immediately after the caucuses - about Biden’s unique and unexpected appeal among young voters.

The one thing that strikes me when I talked to youth voters in Iowa was who they were supporting. Few wanted Hillary (hence her 4th place finish with young voters). Many, in fact, were between Obama and JOE BIDEN. Why? Look above. In the end, many of these voters choose Obama, and the ones that choose Biden found him unviable and moved to Obama. Biden doesn’t pander, and he speaks straightforward. He never tailored his messages to difference audience. Compare his rhetoric to Obama’s, you might be surprised.

As I walked around my precinct, a suburban, middle class, mostly white neighborhoods of West Des Moines, I ran into numerous voters who were between Obama and Biden. I ran into young high schoolers who liked Joe Biden because he didn’t speak down to them and seemed incredibly knowledgeable. I pressed them to support Barack as their second choice, but slowly fears began to creep into me that Biden might become viable, and suck away some of Barack’s steam.

Come to caucus night - an incredible story in itself, a day that will be remembered forever in American political lore. The estimated turnout at my caucus was 220 people - and over 400 showed up. Joe Biden did surprise, turnout out almost 45 people, only 15 less than John Edwards. But Edwards just snuck above viability, and Biden did not - sending, as I expected, most of his voters to us. In the end, Obama was 240 people alone, Hillary 110 (only gaining 4 in the second round, versus 35+ for us), and Edwards 65. Though in reality, Biden has about 10%, in caucus math, he got a big 0%.

I’m almost certain this was happening all around the state.

Iowa is the only test-tube we have for Joe Biden because he dropped out that night. But the facts were clear - as people got to know him better, they liked him more. He was hated by few voters, and was the candidate best positioned to break through. If it weren’t for Obama’s incredible turnout operation, he would have broken through.

And in the end, I can see America doing the same. Because in Iowa, victory was bringing together Biden and Obama supporters, both of whom want the same thing - change, and competency in the White House.

Today, I was proved right about John Edwards.

I remember Edwards in 2004. He wasn’t the fiery populist that he is now. He was against Universal Health Care. He voted for the war and hadn’t yet apologized (he’d actually co-sponsored the legislation, an unforgivable sin in my opnion).

On caucus night in Iowa, I was having a general good time. The Hillary people were subdued and reclusive, and the Richardson staffer next to me was having a near-nervous breakdown, but that was to be expected. But when I went to the Edwards table to get some water, the lady there turned on me.

“You need to start thinking.” she said as she saw my shirt, refusing to give me some water.

“I’m not caucusing, I’m just observing,” I replied, surprised at her virtrosity towards Obama.

She eventually gave me some water, telling me she hopes it would wet my brain and get my cells thinking again.

I always felt that Edwards, of all the candidates, was in this for himself. He was the only one (besides Gravel) who did not hold political office, instead, he’d been essentially running for President for the past 4 years, since his last defeat. He had changes all of his positions and spent months sucking up to the Progressive base, including the blogosphere. Little surprise that the folks at MyDD, OpenLeft, and numerous other blogs jumped on the Edwards bandwagon, and he routinely won the DailyKos straw polls.

Today, we learned that Edwards was just another politicial, another smooth talking lawyer.

Thankfully, we decided to nominate a real candidate this time.

Who I’m okay with:

Kathleen Sebelius (yes, I’m a homeboy)

Wesley Clark

Bill Richardson

Brian Schweitzer (my dark horse)

Not Cool

Joe Biden

Tim Kaine

Tom Daschle (not change)

Chuck Hagel

Very Not Cool

Sam Nunn

Hillary Clinton (sorry, still not over it)

Evan Bayh

On the Fence

Chris Dodd

From the good folks at My Silver State

This is the new McCain logo for 2008. Symbolizes his campaign almost perfectly, and sadly.

I remember 9/11 well. I was 18. I was heading of to college, about to, for the first time ever, live away from home. I’d decided to move to California, halfway across the country from my hometown of Overland Park, Kansas, and on 9/11, me and my dad were halfway to California. We were in Flagstaff, Arizona, actually, on a quick stopover to visit the Grand Canyon.

That morning I turned on the TV to check ESPN. Instead, I found out the world I’d be entering college into a world completely different than the one I’d graduated high school from. The first thought on my mind as I saw the twin towers in flames - “please, let it not be Arab terrorists.”

I want you all to think for a second - on those first few days, when America was twisted inside out. I knew about the Japanese internments during World War II, of the history of slavery and subsequent Jim Crow segregation that had only ended when my dad was my age. As a brown American, not of Arab origin, but fully aware of the fact that most Americans could not tell the difference, I honestly wondered for a few days whether America would accept me anymore.

Fear gripped me.

Osama Bin Laden. He was everywhere. Terrorism had become communism of our era. My generation now had it’s JFK moment. Fear was pervasive, onmipresent. Not far from where me and my dad spent the following night, September 12th, at a hotel where the receptionist’s eyes were glued to pictures of Bin Laden on the news, Balbir Singh, a Sikh-American, was murdered in an hate crime for refusing to remove his turban.

It could very easily have been me. That was the world those days.

More below the fold

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You’ve not only made history, but you’ve restored my belief in the American dream and my country.

Now, let’s go change America.