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Obama capitalizes on Biden's, Clinton's experience

BY CRAIG GORDON | craig.gordon@newsday.com

August 27, 2008

DENVER - Barack Obama's presidential campaign is all about the change that a fresh face can bring to Washington.

But for tonight at least, the face of the Democratic Party will have some wrinkles.

Obama is turning the podium tonight over to two of his party's senior stalwarts - running mate Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton, whose job is to give Obama the stamp of approval of an earlier generation of Democratic leaders.

It's a move that attests to a collision of old and new at the convention this week - as Obama moves to put his mark of approval on a party long led by the Clintons. Obama recognizes that voters will be reassured about him if such longtime party figures believe he's up to the job.

But it could be jarring, particularly to some of the younger voters who Obama is counting on to help him to win the White House. Obama is a candidate who once skipped an AARP senior-citizens forum to go to an event starring Usher. But in Biden and Clinton, he's got two speakers who are more Ben-Gay than Beyoncé.

Biden, in particular, seems an unlikely messenger for change - a 36-year veteran of the Senate whose son works as a lobbyist - serving as character witness to candidate Obama, who has railed against lobbying all year. Biden has been in Washington so long that he joined the Senate when Obama was 11 years old.

"There is a way to spin the change message that you can weave Biden into that narrative, but that will be the challenge for the campaign, frankly," said Michael McDonald, a public affairs professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He said Obama can talk of "change" as getting rid of the policies of George W. Bush - and that Biden would be his partner in that fight.

The campaign clearly thinks so - knowing that one way to ease voters' doubts about Obama's youth and relative inexperience on the national stage is to surround him with people who have been there before.

"For voters who don't know Sen. Obama very well, it helps provide validation for his agenda and his ability to be president. Having an agenda for change is not inconsistent with having tried and tested voices to discuss that agenda," said Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer.

Added Obama backer Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan: "I think Bill Clinton is a great messenger because we'll take the '90s anytime - 22 million new jobs. And Joe Biden is a fighter - and we always need a fighter."

But for all of Obama's nods to a new politics, even some of the younger leaders he is choosing to spotlight this week give a nod to the old political playbook.

The keynoter last night, ex-Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, fits squarely into the mold of the only two Democrats who were elected president in the past several decades - moderate Southern governors Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

It's proof that the more things change, the more they stay the same in politics, no matter who is at the top of the ticket. One thing Obama has going for him this week is that experts agree his persona as a candidate of change is well-established in the public mind - even if they're not ready to make him president yet - no matter who speaks on his behalf at the convention.

"Obama could have picked Dick Cheney as his running mate, and he'd still be the candidate for change," said Joel Goldstein, an expert on the vice presidency from St. Louis University. "By picking someone with experience [like Biden], I don't think he destroys his brand name. He simply covers another base."