Chris Matthews, on MSNBC, sets the tone for the coming five days: “This looks like the best possible choice.” The Biden choice is the opening of a mainstream-media return to uncritical Obama coverage.

NBC’s Chuck Todd, following Matthews, discussed what a wonderful campaigner Biden is: “I saw him in Iowa. He got barely a percent of he vote [in the 2008 caucus], but he got four or five hundred people out to see him.” That anecdote tells a story almost the opposite of what Todd intends: It means that, at the end of a town hall meeting with Biden, Iowans were evidently less likely to vote for him than they might have been going in. As a senator from Delaware, Biden has never actually received more than a 165,000 votes in any of the six elections he has won.

There is, in poin of fact, no evidence whatever that Biden is the kind of politician who makes a direct personal connection with voters. But by Tuesday, mark my words, it will be gospel that he is a populist genius.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.