Who's a Kennedy?

Yesterday I caught a clip of Obama calling John McCain’s campaign “sleazy”. Other than bend and twist statements and records, which is normal foreplay in any political campaign, the thing that Obama must find most sleazy about McCain’s campaign is his choice of running mate.
During the Democratic convention, commentators were saying to one another that in picking Joe Biden for his Veep, Obama had found a real scrapper. I think that’s the word one of them used. They went on to say that McCain’s campaign would find Biden hard to deal with because he was such an experienced and tough political fighter.
Here, they said, was a man who could do all of Obama’s dirty work for him, leaving the main candidate free to take the high road. Watch out, Republicans!
Then McCain went out and found his own scrapper. A commentator who professed to know said recently that in Alaska they don’t consider Palin to be a Barracuda, they think of her as a great white shark circling in the water.
He went on to insist that people were afraid of her. A friend of mine sent me a blog today from a woman who took her kids to school with Palin (and knows her) that listed all the situations she has bitten and clawed her way through.
She apparently isn’t nice if you get on her bad side. She keeps a list, like Santa Claus, of who deserves toys and who gets coal in his sock. They say she delivers on that hit list.
All along they’ve been saying that Obama reminds us of Jack Kennedy. Right now, McCain reminds me more of the former president, at least in his campaign style.
Kennedy could be a dirty fighter. He didn’t get the nomination by universal acclamation during the primaries. His tactics in West Virginia were so low that Hubert Humphrey was reduced to tears of frustration. But it’s what JFK did at the convention that stands out.
His toughest, meanest, nastiest opponent that year had been Lyndon Johnson. LBJ was a man who knew how to get the US Supreme Court to throw out 20,000 anti-Johnson votes so that he could take his Senate seat by fewer than 70 votes. He knew how to win – by any means.
As soon as JFK had the nomination in Los Angeles, he, Bobby and some aides went straight to Johnson’s hotel room and informed him he was going to be on the ticket. LBJ wasn’t very interested. No matter. Kennedy put him on the ticket.
Kennedy knew that Johnson had run the Senate – as no man ever has before or since – by coercion, intimidation and raw fear. LBJ, too, was a great white shark circling in the water – with a long, long list of who was naughty and who was nice.
A bit like Sarah Palin? Could be.
Obama could have put a shark on his ticket. Hilary’s people say he didn’t even bother to vet her. Was he scared of her? (I wouldn’t trust her any farther than Kennedy probably trusted Johnson; you need her to win votes, not be your best friend and advisor.)
So he picked Joe (Who?). He felt more comfortable with him. And he felt Biden could do all the heavy lifting that would be needed. Until McCain picked a shark of his own.
Maybe it’s time somebody should look at Obama and repeat the famous words, “You’re no Kennedy.”