"Mr. Amtrak" at work

Joe Biden, aka "Mr. Amtrak," now has a great position from which to fight for rail service in this country. It's working. Good for him. I like Amtrak. Mostly I like Amtrak because I am firm believer in that good old capitalist value of efficiency, and there ain't nothing more efficient than a train for getting people from Point A to Point B. Republicans oppose funding for Amtrak because a lot of their constituents are in rural areas, whereas Amtrak serves all those liberal northeastern intellectual-elitist types between Boston and Washington. Of course, Amtrak also serves the rest of the country, but it's most heavily used in the northeast.

This is one of those things that will be turned around by Obama, and will start to deliver dividends quickly. There are, I am sure, lots of basic things that can be done to improve Amtrak, and spending from the stimulus package will target those. As those improvements start to be implemented, we'll see some positive reinforcement - more people will ride Amtrak, more people will have a better experience riding Amtrak, and therefore more people will be supportive of Amtrak. The numbers will not be dramatic at first, but they will build. More importantly, this is just one area where we will see this effect from the Obama administration.

Visually mapping the VP debate

I found this from Daily Kos: a map of one question from the VP debate. Really gives a good idea of how complicated their answers were. This is all from bCisive. I'm going to be checking back on this stuff.

The Veep debate

I'm going to give the VP debate to Biden. I have to admit that Sarah Palin did better than I was expecting. No major mistakes, came across as forceful, held her own. All good for the McCain-Palin ticket. She clearly did better than her she did in her interviews with Katie Couric. That's what most of the commentary that I have read has aaid.

But there's one detail that I think has been missed. I don't have specific numbers in front of me, but my guess is that far, far more people watched this debate than have seen the Couric interviews. And if this was your first impression of her, I think it was a disaster.

Off the top of my head, some numbers: Katie Couric pulls in roughly 7 million viewers a night. Let's say 10 million people watched Katie Couric interview Sarah Palin on TV. Let's say another million or so watched versions of that online. be generous, let's say 12 million people have watched some portion of that interview somewhere. let's assume that this is roughly the same crowd that watched Charlie Gibson roast her on the Bush Doctrine.

But there were 52 million viewers for the first presidential debate. Let's be conservative and say that this debate drew 40 million. That means that there were 28 million people who were getting their first impression of her in some kind of a question-and-answer format. Towards the end of the debate, it was transparently obvious to me that she was reciting talking points, regurgitating campaign slogans. I think many of those 28 million will be thinking the same way.

In one of his answers about the Middle East, Joe Biden mentioned Hamas and Hezbollah. As carefully as I follow politics, I still get confused about which one is which and what power they have in which country. But Joe Biden clearly knew his stuff there, and Sarah Palin did not answer anything, particularly on foreign policy, which that kind of detail.

Obama chooses Biden

Ending months of speculation and a few days of frenzy, Barack Obama has chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. Good call. Most excellent choice. Biden brings a great deal of foreign policy experience, with few downsides. Other than a tendency to occasionally let his mouth run a bit too much, he doesn't have any problems. Having run for president himself twice, he's pretty thoroughly vetted. He's very much an insider, which contrasts with Obama's "change" message, but is John McCain going to criticize someone for being in the Senate too long, when that has been his day job for a couple of decades?

Reaction is mostly positive. Andrew Sullivan is happy with it, and corrals some other responses. He's particularly happy with the contrast with the current occupant.

We've learned how disastrous a vice-president can be, in the current administration. No vice-president in American history has done as much damage to national security, constitutional integrity and the moral standing of the United States as Dick Cheney. Biden has aspects of the Cheney pick - he's older, more seasoned and more adept at foreign policy than Obama. But no one imagines that Obama would delegate - and all but abdicate - critical decisions to Biden the way Bush has to Cheney.

Nonetheless, it seems obvious that Biden speaks his mind frankly, and would have real heft and independence in the office. He knows enough that foreign leaders call him in international crises. That reassures me, as we face some grim days in the coming years in the war on terror.

This strikes me, in other words, as a pick for a candidate who is already very serious about governing - and making calls that forgo a campaign buzz for the sake of the country if he wins. Putting country first, you might say.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Daily Kos, meanwhile, rounds up reactions from other politicians, which are, as one might expect, pretty much glowing. The Kossacks themselves are feeling good today, as well. Kos himself isn't completely thrilled. Kos argues that Biden "fills a gap" in Obama's resume, rather than reinforces his message of change. That makes sense, but I think "plugging the gap" can also be read as "broadening his appeal." Obama has the base mostly locked down. He needs to expand his appeal to people who are interested in him, but not yet completely sold. Biden does that better than any of the other candidates.

Huffpost will have the video, and of course has completely obsessive coverage.