Running mates hogging lion’s share of limelight

The late selection of vice presidential nominees has led to a gaffe-filled contest in which each campaign is pointing the finger at its rival’s running mate.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) has, in recent days, lived up to his reputation as a gaffe machine, breaking with his running mate on a few occasions and, in at least once instance, drawing a soft rebuke from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

{mosads}Democrats would no doubt like to return fire, but are left to lament the bubble Republican candidate John McCain’s campaign has erected around his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and note her limited record is hard to contrast with McCain’s 26 years in Washington.

On Tuesday, as Washington and much of the world were focused on the proposed financial bailout for Wall Street and the gathering of world leaders at United Nations headquarters in New York City, the influential website Drudge Report was dominated by the back-and-forth between Biden and Obama.

In a Monday night interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric, Biden disavowed an ad from the Obama campaign — which ran with the legally required tagline of Obama approving the message — that portrayed McCain as out-of-date and computer-illiterate.

“I thought that was terrible, by the way,” Biden said of the ad. “I didn’t know we did it, and if I’d had anything to do with it, we would have never done it.”

Later Monday night, Biden issued a statement from the Obama campaign saying he “was asked about an ad I’d never seen, reacting merely to press reports.”

And in the immediate wake of the Wall Street crisis, Biden said at first there should be no federal bailout of the American International Group (AIG), forcing Obama to say in a televised interview that “Joe should have waited” before making the prognosis.

Biden didn’t help his case when he said earlier this month that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) “might have been a better pick than me” to be Obama’s running mate. Bill Clinton seemed to agree with that assessment in an interview on ABC’s “The View” Monday. The former president said that Sen. Clinton would have been a better pick “politically, at least in the short run.”

Republican campaign officials say that Biden has been committing gaffes since the moment he entered his own race for the presidency last year, and he hasn’t stopped since joining the Democratic ticket with Obama. But, as one McCain official said, “now he’s saying things at a time when people are paying attention.”

McCain spokesman Ben Porritt said the campaign’s goal is not to target Biden, though the Delaware senator does give the campaign ammunition to go after what they see as Obama’s inexperience.

“Our strategy is not to focus on Barack Obama’s running mate,” Porritt said. “We understand [Biden] has a tough job because he is constantly tasked with embellishing Barack Obama’s record where none exists.”

The Obama campaign countered with an attack on McCain’s running mate.

Nick Shapiro, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said that what little is known about Palin and her differences with McCain is further evidence that the Arizona Republican made a “political” choice for a running mate.

{mospagebreak}“John McCain and the American people know very little about Gov. Palin’s record, and that says a lot about his judgment to select her,” Shapiro said. “Obama has shown that he has the judgment and experience to lead this country, and the voters know Obama made the right call in selecting a national security expert and a fighter for the middle class in Joe Biden.

“John McCain, on the other hand, made a political calculation in selecting a candidate who would play to his base and uphold the disastrous Bush economic policies they favor, giving us just more of the same.”

Democrats have just as quickly and aggressively seized on McCain’s misstatements and “flip-flops,” but they have not had the luxury of fanning the flames of any divide between the Arizona Republican and his running mate, Palin.

{mosads}The Alaska governor has only sat for a couple of interviews and she has kept her traveling press contingent at a distance — stiff-arming that resulted in a mini-revolt Tuesday when networks balked at the campaign’s decision to keep reporters out of Palin’s meetings with world leaders in New York City but to allow photographers in.

Despite the campaign’s reticence to put Palin in front of reporters, there exists evidence of crucial policies on which McCain and his running mate differ.

One that has taken center-stage is Palin’s past position on the causes of global warming. While McCain has championed the issue and the need to address its man-made causes for quite some time, Palin has in the past disputed whether there are man-made causes.

And in an interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson — her first on the big stage — Palin acknowledged that she is “going to keep working on” McCain to get him to change his opposition to opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration.

“We’ll agree to disagree, but I’m going to keep pushing that and I think eventually we’re all going to come together on that one,” Palin said.

Palin also, according to past reports, seemed opposed to the Real ID Act, an issue that McCain supported, much to his detriment with some Republican conservatives who vehemently oppose the immigration measure.

Perhaps causing the campaign the biggest heartburn, however, is the perceived difference between McCain and Palin over the issue of earmarks.

The McCain campaign has drawn a lot of media flak for continuing to insist that Palin has long been an opponent of the practice despite records that prove otherwise, including $26.9 million the town of Wasilla received when Palin was mayor and the $256 million for fiscal 2008 and $197 million she requested for fiscal 2009 in her capacity as governor.