By Sarah Kliff and Andrew Romano
NASHUA, N.H.--Joe Biden has had his hands full with Gov. Sarah Palin the past few days. But at a town hall this afternoon here in Nashua, the Democratic vice presidential nominee set his sights on another high-powered female politician: Hillary Clinton.
During the Q&A session after Biden's stump speech, a local voter brought up the former Democratic presidential candidate for the first time this week. "I am very pleased that Obama chose you over Hillary," he told Biden, as the crowd erupted with applause (a surprise, given that the Granite State was the site of Clinton's first primary win). As Biden struggled to shush the masses, the questioner rattled off a litany of unrelated points, veering from Freddie Mac to the "disgraceful ... Mexican wall." Eventually, Biden cut him off and came to Clinton's rescue.
The only question is whether he did too much rescuing.
"Make no mistake about this," said Biden. "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified as I am … She’s qualified to be president of the United States of America and easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America. And quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me."
Whoa. Did we just hear Joe Biden express ... humility?
We have no idea if the Delaware senator was sincerely saying that Clinton would've been better equipped to battle the Barracuda, or if he simply went a little overboard in rising to her defense. But if it was the former, Biden's not alone. Over the past few days, a number of prominent scholars, Republicans and even Democrats have taken to wondering what might have been. "If Hillary was on the ticket, he’d be in a much better position to win women voters," Republican Rep. Candice S. Miller told the Politico this morning. Julia Piscitelli of the American University’s Women and Politics Institute agreed. “I don’t think Palin would be seeing these kind of gains if Hillary was on the ticket,” she said. “When Obama picked Biden, it gave Republicans an opening, and they are taking full advantage of it." Meanwhile, a former Clinton adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, went so far as to say that the “Obama people have got to be kicking themselves.”
True? Who knows. Still, it's easy to imagine that if the order of the conventions had been reversed and McCain had shocked the world by picking Palin first, Obama would've at least considered shoring up female swing voters and bringing disaffected Hillaryites back into the fold by selecting Clinton as his running mate. As it happened, it was McCain who had the benefit of reacting to Obama's pick--a seemingly inconsequential quirk of scheduling that appears to have worked in the GOP's favor.
Just ask Joe Biden.
