The Liberal Dream Team

Fred Barnes writes for the WSJ:

Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s choice as his vice presidential running mate, may be the most well-liked person in Washington. He’s affable and gregarious and nice to everybody, including the press and Republicans. When conservative Sen. Jesse Helms retired from Congress in 2002, the featured speaker at a luncheon honoring him was none other than Mr. Biden.

Brit Hume, the Fox News anchor, tells the story of having been asked by Mr. Biden why he put the Delaware senator in his TV reports from Capitol Hill so infrequently. "Senator, you’re a windbag," Mr. Hume told him. Several years later, Mr. Biden approached Mr. Hume again and said he’d been right in his assessment. It’s hard not to like a major politician who admits a fault, sincerely or not.

Mr. Biden’s popularity in the Washington political community — home to most of the pundit class — helps explain why his selection by Mr. Obama received such favorable reviews. True, some Republicans declared Mr. Biden a bad choice because he’s verbose, bombastic and gaffe-prone. And indeed those are flaws, but hardly fatal ones. The Obama-leaning media is quite capable of ignoring them.

The real reason why an Obama-Biden ticket is a vulnerable one is that it plays into one of the few strengths that Republicans and John McCain have in the 2008 election. A weak economy, a surge in Democratic voter registration, an unpopular Republican president, a sour public mood, a desire for political change — all those favor Mr. Obama and Democrats.

But what Mr. Obama has done is create an all-liberal ticket — a very, very liberal one, at that — in a nation whose electorate is still center-right.