One thing is for sure, if the Obama folks were worried about the late-night-comedian-jokes-about-their-candidate deficit, the ticket is well-balanced now.
I’ve actually always liked Biden — the Senate has become short on characters in modern times, and Biden has self-consciously made himself one. He’s also genuinely smart and funny and compassionate. I held out hope last year that he’d break out of the pack to offer another alternative to HRC but history seemed to conspire against him… now he’s riding it forward.
His big flaw is less his mouth or his gaffes, but rather the personality and history that makes them possible: Since graduating from law school, Biden has never really had a “real” job. He’s been in politics, specifically, in the Senate, for all but four years of his professional life. As a colleague of his told me once, diagnosing Biden’s character was easy once you figured in that “he’s never had a boss.” Certainly, constituents can be some of the harshest and most fickle bosses a person could have, but facing an election is very different than facing a single person who you have to both please and impress, serve and not show up.
Of course, I’ve had plenty of bosses and am still pretty unemployable so who knows.