Pick-cher Perfect

Gotta hand it to Barack, he did it. He picked the perfect veep candidate. For me, anyway.

See, I don't plan to vote for the guy. In fact, given my druthers, I hope he loses the election. And I think Biden - of all the front-runners that were rumored for the job - gives Obama the best chance of a big L come November. I'll explain that later.

The second reason I'm elated over the pick is related to my business. You see, it's highly counter-cyclical. We tend to thrive on recessions. The worse the economy gets, the better we do. So selfishly, I'm always hoping for the economy to tank.

(Not just selfishly in this cycle, actually; I do have a conscience. But as long as Americans allow themselves to be duped into the notion that if they'd only spend more, borrow more, take on more debt, buy more stuff, our nation would be stronger, the more we place ourselves in economic peril. Better a healthy dose of pain now, to shock us back into the economic reality that it is savings, not spending, that is the engine of growth, than that we continue to dig a hole so deep it reaches all the way to China, which will eventually own us anyway at the rate we're going.)

But I digress. In terms of the overall threat to the economy, my dream Dem candidate was John Edwards, he of the "two Americas" shtick. Okay, so now it seems his shtick was otherwise occupied, and his biggest threat was to his own family.

So now, we have Obama and Biden - two uber-liberals, neither of whom understands the first darn thing about global macroeconomics. Given the troubles already a-brewing, these two create a perfect storm scenario - for me, at least. Biden's the bomb - literally, for the economy. The guy is actually left of Obama.

As for why I think Biden hurts Obama (and I'm not alone; just look at the polls in the two days since the pick), there are several factors. One, he flies in the face of Obama's "change" message. He is the epitome of the Washington Insider. He's the new Strom Thurmond. He went straight from Pull-Ups to the Senate. He's the establishment. He's the reason Michelle has never been proud of her country.

Two, he's the loosest cannon in Washington. He makes Howard Dean look reserved. His off-the-cuff (but on-the-record) comments get him in hot water. The good news is he'll take the spotlight off Michelle's gaffes, at least somewhat. The bad news is, he - not Michelle - will be the guy a heartbeat away from the red phone. (Speaking of his habit of sticking his foot in his mouth, do you suppose the reason he's attracted to the Obama ticket now is that he gets to pair up with an "articulate, bright, clean and nice-looking" African-American guy?)

The third reason comes to us courtesy of the Miranda card: "Anything you say can and will be used against you." He said Obama wasn't ready for the job. Heck, Obama's selection of him only serves to ratify that assertion - after all, why else would you pick the most entrenched guy in the Beltway to hop on your "Change Express," if you weren't acknowledging that you needed some depth on your ticket to counter-balance your own 200 days of experience (most of which were spent campaigning for president)? And he's also said America would be better off with John McCain as president.

Okay, now that I've explained why I just love this pick, I want to take a poke at the announcement itself, then I want to peel back the layers of false hype surrounding Mr. Biden to reveal the man behind the myth.

I thought the whole text message thing was a joke. But then, I'm a curmudgeon, not into "texting" (since when did that become a verb, for crying out loud?). It only reinforced McCain's Britney/Paris ad, as well as the whole "our candidate's a rock-star" crap that the Dems seem to be puking out, which makes me want to puke myself.

And I think it's funny - given all the criticism of McCain for not being tech-savvy - that the stupid text message scheme apparently didn't even work. Hey, if the guy can't work a simple cell phone, how do we expect him to handle missile defense?

My advice to McCain, to upstage the upstart, is to announce his pick the way Batman gets signaled - use our satellite network to send the name into space, where people around the globe can look up into the night sky and see it emblazoned on the heavens! Ooh! Aah!

Okay, now let's expose this guy.

First, let's explode the myth that he's a "commoner." The Dem propaganda would have us believe he's a "regular guy," he's "one of us."

Excuse me, but I don't live in a mansion.

(Digression: this whole stupid thing about how many houses McCain has is simply ridiculous. All of these guys - McCain, Obama, Biden - are stupid rich. Once you have a $4 million book deal, a $2 million mansion, a "compound," etc., I think you give up the right to cast aspersions on the guy who has seven houses. Heck, I know guys right here in my hometown who have multiple houses - either a vacation house at the lake or a few rental properties around town. Are they uber-rich? Gimme a break.)

Biden gets the love because he drives a Ford F-150. Well, I don't know what year it is, but those things can be pretty nice, and pretty expensive. And pretty thirsty on the petrol. Just hope he's keeping his tires inflated.

He also gets props for taking the train to and from work, for two reasons: first, it shows he's just a regular workin' stiff, taking public transportation like the rest of us. And second, it shows that he's not a "Washington Insider," because he's never had a home in D.C.

Anybody who buys that last argument is just too stupid to vote. You don't have to live in Washington to be an insider. But if you've been a career politician, chances are you are one. Especially when you've voted party line your whole life, as Biden's done. Heck, he's pro-choice, and he's a Catholic. How do you reconcile that one? Easy - either his faith is a front, or he's sold his soul to the party chairman. I'll give him a pass on the former, and bet my net worth on the latter. This guy is as Washington Insider as Ted Kennedy, just without the hiccups and the slurred speech.

Now, about that train. It was reported this weekend that he rides Amtrak's Acela Express, the high-speed commuter train that's the pride of the Amtrak fleet, rivaling the Eurostar. (I've ridden the Eurostar. It's a once or twice in a lifetime treat, at least for an average Joe like me. It's plush.)

The Acela is all business and first-class seating, with snack service at your seat. We recently rode the train to Chicago for our family vacation. We had to walk to the snack car to get our munchies.

From Amtrak's website: "Enjoy superior comfort, upscale amenities, and polished professional service — at speeds up to 150 mph." Oh, yeah, Joe's a busy guy. Time is money, after all, and he's one of the leaders of the free world. So he needs the speed. It's not about the amenities with him, no, sir.

Of course, Amtrak does have a regular coach train - like the one I rode to Chicago - that makes the D.C.-Wilmington run just a half-hour slower than the Acela. But again, time is money.

How much money, you ask?

Well, the aforementioned slower train costs about $86 for a round-trip between D.C. and Wilmington, and you can buy even cheaper passes for it. The Acela?

Between $208 and $250 a round-trip. Read that again.

No passes. No senior discount (yeah, Joe's an old fart - wait, wasn't that a reason we shouldn't elect McCain?). An average of $229 per day.

That works out to about $4,400 a month, if he works 21 days a month like the rest of us stiffs (which he likely doesn't). I checked bankrate.com for the D.C. area, and that monthly payment would get you a mortgage of about $729,000 with 20% down. That equates to a home price of around $900,000. So I then checked a D.C. realtor's website (I just like to know what the heck I'm talking about, so I'm prone to research), and I found that $900,000 will buy you a nice condo, townhome or single-family residence in tony Georgetown.

Ever been to Georgetown? I have. It's nice. Remember the cool neighborhood where Tom Cruise lived in "A Few Good Men?" Where he drove down the street in the rain, chasing after Demi Moore after calling her "monumentally stupid?" That was Georgetown, home of not just a handful of our nation's lawmakers.

So, let's not be drinking the "Biden rides the train because he's one of us" Kool-Aid. He ain't. I don't know about you, but I can't drop four grand a month on my daily commute. And again, if you buy the crap about his riding the train to avoid becoming a Washington Insider, I've got some real estate to sell you. In Florida, Southern California, Vegas, or Phoenix. Heck, you can even finance it with an option ARM.

Actually, he started riding the train because just before he was sworn into his first term in the Senate, his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident, and he wanted to be home every night with his other three kids. Now that's a story I can relate to. That's a story I can give him much credit for. But that's not the story Dems want to sell. Why? I dunno, maybe family values just aren't a plank in their platform. But for my benefit, give the guy props for being a family man. Just don't try to tell me he's a thrifty dude who's not a Washington Insider. Truth is, he's a fat cat who's as entrenched as any of them. But he loves his kids, and that's cool.

Oh, I should also mention that the earliest Acela Express train gets into D.C. at 8:55 am. The regular coach train gets in earlier, but hey, it's coach, right? Gotta walk for your snacks, and you don't get a free paper (or, as the case may be, a $140 paper, since that's about the fare difference). So, as BTO said, "if your train's on time, you can get to work by nine." That's assuming he can make the 12-block trip from D.C.'s Union Station to his office in the Russell Senate Office Building in five. No doubt we the people buck up for a fast car to get him there, though. (See, I really do look all this crap up.)

Okay, I'll bust three more myths, then I'm off to bed. Biden supposedly grew up "poor" in Scranton, PA. Well, I checked on that, too. His family actually moved to Wilmington when he was ten. So half his formative years were spent there. Poor? His dad was a car salesman. I don't know how well he did selling cars, but he sent Joe to a prep school that today carries a tuition tab of about $18,500 a year. Plus books. Now, a bright kid can get a scholly. Of as much as $1,000. Woo, hoo. I'm sending my daughter off to college next year, and if her college - much less her high school - cost me twenty grand, I'd be swallowing, hard. I'd say the Bidens did okay, compared to my family, and we're far from poor.

Second, there's his foreign policy experience. Yes, he has considerable foreign policy experience.

Ralph Cioffi had considerable bond trading experience, too. That didn't stop him from blowing up his hedge funds, Bear Stearns, and the credit markets.

The point is, experience doesn't always lead to good things. Dick Cheney had a ton of foreign policy experience too, and there are a lot of people who aren't very happy with where that's gotten us.

Some of Biden's foreign policy ideas are nothing short of loony. To wit: his Iraq solution is to split the country into thirds, forcibly re-locate people into the separated lands according to their religious sect affiliation (Sunni, Shiite, Kurd), and then let them live like that until at some point in the future they can get along.

Like I said, he's a good father for wanting to be home with his kids every night. But this "each of you go to your room until you can play nice" approach just doesn't translate well from child-rearing to foreign policy. It's not only a dumb idea, it's just plain wrong. For the US to forcibly divide a sovereign nation and relocate its people is every bit as wrong as invading and occupying that nation. And two wrongs don't make a right. (I seem to recall something about the Trail of Tears, and Apartheid, and Biden's proposal sounds pretty similar.)

Finally, there's this whole "he's the poorest guy in the Senate" song and dance. Folks, that's like saying "Woe is me, I'm dead-last on the Forbes 400 list." Or, "I have the smallest house in the Hamptons." Every US Senator, by your and my standards, is doggone rich. Joe Biden's no exception.

I'm not alone in lauding this pick. Every Democrat out there (except the umpteen-thousand bitter Hillary supporters, which represent a whole 'nother blog topic) calls this a great pick.

Of course, those people would applaud Obama's picking Attila the Hun - or even Al Sharpton - as long as he had a (D) behind his name. It's the "anybody but Bush" syndrome, and it has about half of America not thinking at all. And that's the saddest thing about this election:

Barack Obama is the Pied Piper. And those who would follow him right off the face of the earth deserve both him and their fate. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Bush, though I don't demonize him, and I can cite some things he's done right. But there's risk in desperation, in saying, "We need somebody different, so let's pick ... that guy in the parking lot."

Change sounds great, but it can always be change for the worse. Anybody who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. But I hope I'm wrong about that. If I'm not, at least my bonus checks will be bigger. Good thing, since they'll be taxed at a much higher rate.