| Politics

In choosing Senator Joe Biden, the Obama campaign has guaranteed that the Right to Life will continue to be a preeminent issue in the Presidential campaign of 2008.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - After the most intense media game of “cat and mouse” in modern political history. After the Obama campaign managed to keep the suspense alive for well over a week. After promising to be the first campaign in history to make the announcement through the use of text message. The old fashioned “leak it to the media” game prevailed over high technology in Washington D.C. as speculation evolved into reliable rumors. Finally, around 3 AM, EST, it was confirmed as fact. Senator Barack Obama had chosen long time Senator Joe Biden of Delaware to be his Vice Presidential running mate.

The Obama campaign scrambled to fulfill their promise to the faithful, and the curious, who had signed up to be a part of political history. They sent the long awaited cell phone text message, probably awakening millions, at least on the East Coast, to herald what was essentially old news, "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee."

The major networks were all following the homes and the travels of the three “finalists” most of the day. The speculation was running rampant and the news cycle focused on very little else throughout the day. It appeared to this political observer that Fox News zeroed in on Joe Biden first on their Friday evening telecast.Others say it was MSNBC. Soon,all of the networks broke the story.

The Obama campaign placed a new banner on their Web Site picturing the two men, announcing the new Democratic Ticket with these words underneath: “Barack has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate. Joe Biden brings extensive foreign policy experience, an impressive record of collaborating across party lines, and a direct approach to getting the job done. We have our team, but we also have our work cut out for us. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the leaders who will bring the change our country needs. But they can't do it alone. Show your support for the Obama-Biden ticket by making a donation today.”

The Choice of a Catholic Running Mate

So the fresh face of American politics has chosen as his Vice Presidential running mate a “seasoned” white haired fixture of Democratic politics, best known for his interest in foreign policy, with 30 years in the US Senate. Senator Biden has served as Chair of the Senate Foreign relations Committee and the Judiciary Committee, with its significant role in Supreme Court nominations. Already the Washington rumor mills are abuzz and the pundit class has taken a deep breath preparing for a new round of pontification. Frankly, there seems to be very little excitement and a whole lot of surprise.

I suggest that the choice of Biden was strategic on a number of fronts,many of which will be dissected in the endless punditry which will fill the airwaves this weekend. However, what will soon become apparent is the Obama campaigns’ efforts to stem the steady loss of Catholic and Evangelical support based upon the candidates support for unrestricted abortion affirmed during the Saddleback Civil Forum. He had tried hard, through surrogates like Doug Kmiec and others, to present a softer side, an apparent opening to reconsidering the Democratic Parties’ obsession with the deprivation of human rights from children in the womb over the last two decades. All of that was teetering on being lost.

So, enter Joe Biden the Catholic. Joe Biden is a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania has Irish, blue collar, working-class roots which he will certainly attempt to bring to the campaign. He is a practicing Roman Catholic Christian. Along with his wife Jill, he attends St. Patrick Church, which is a part of the Diocese of Wilmington in Delaware. His careful discussion concerning all of the issues related to the deprivation of rights from children in the womb have been careful and strategic. He is a talented debater, a solid interviewee, a careful speaker on this issue. I believe that the Obama campaign is counting on this to stem the loss and attempt to reengage the efforts to attract Catholics and other orthodox Christians who simply will not accept any candidate who argues that an entire class of persons, children in the first home of the whole human race, can be summarily killed and that such an action should be called a “right”.

Joe Biden is also a member of that group of Catholics, from both major parties, who have come under unrelenting scrutiny from a growing and vocal part of the Catholic lay faithful. These Republicans and Democrats try to expound a “public/private” dichotomy on the fundamental human rights issue of our age, the Right to life from conception to natural death. Senator Biden the Catholic purports to be personally opposed to abortion and to “accept” the clear Catholic teaching that all human life is sacred and must be protected and respected from the moment of conception, throughout all of life’s spectrum and to a natural death. Yet, in his own ...