Worst Mates: Biden's a better bad pick than Hillaryby Daniel ClarkWhy is it that when Joe Biden says Hillary Clinton would make a betterrunning mate than he does, he's suddenly presumed to know what he'stalking about? Perhaps it's because he's agreeing with both liberal andconservative analysts, who say that Barack Obama committed a tremendousblunder by not selecting the former first lady as his vice presidentialcandidate. Instead, those pundits should take Biden's endorsement of theirtheory as an indication that they should reconsider their conclusions.This is not to say that Sen. Biden was necessarily the correct choice, butthere are many reasons to believe he's a better pick than Sen. Clintonwould have been.* There's no such thing as "Biden fatigue." -- Most of America isunfamiliar with the Delaware senator, whereas everybody knows who Mrs.Clinton is, and large numbers of people have decided that they've seenenough. Polls have uniformly shown Hillary's negatives to beextraordinarily high and deeply entrenched, and few people know thisbetter than the candidate who defeated her in the primaries.Furthermore, Obama is running as the candidate of -- all together now --"change." The last thing he needs is to share the stage with Hillary andher husband, and a host of other relics from the last Democratadministration. Besides, the former president's presence on the campaigntrail would remind people that he had run as the "change" candidate in1992, making Obama's "change" theme appear more insipid than it alreadydoes.* Sen. Clinton would pale in comparison to Gov. Palin. -- There's a worldof difference between what feminists call a "strong woman" and someone whoreally is one, and Hillary belongs in the former category. Conventionalwisdom says that John McCain would have picked a different running mate ifObama had picked Sen. Clinton, but what if that's not true?Sarah Palin is a self-made politician, as opposed to Mrs. Clinton, who hasgotten where she is by riding on her husband's shoulders. BecauseHillary's future was dependent on Bill's, she became an enabler of all hissordid escapades. She'd wanted to be "co-president," but instead wound upsharing the role of his humiliated secretary, Betty Currie.When Hillary first ran for the Senate, the media rallied to defend herfrom the cad Rick Lazio, who had menacingly approached her podium with asheet of paper during a debate. Mrs. Palin would not feel threatened by agangly congressman brandishing one gram of wood, and neither would JoeBiden. Had Obama known he'd need a VP candidate to run against a strongwoman, he'd have been better off picking a strong man than a weak woman.* The pro-abortion position is a loser -- By pitting Sen. Clinton againstGov. Palin, Obama would be inviting feminists to make the case that theonly "real" women's candidate is the one who is pro-abortion -- anargument based on the fallacy that public opinion on the issue is dividedby gender. To the contrary, there is no significant difference of opinionon abortion between men and women. (So much for the "if men got pregnant"canard.) Moreover, most people who base their vote on the abortion issueconsistently vote for the anti-abortion candidate.Obama must also consider his voting record in the Illinois senate, wherehe determined that an already born child who has survived an abortionattempt should not be protected by law. That's a tremendously unpopularopinion, which he'd naturally prefer not to discuss at this time. Bythrusting the issue to the forefront of the campaign, he'd be sullying hisown image, with no discernible benefit.* Hillary's blunders are worse than Biden's -- Perhaps the most potentcriticism of Obama's selection is that Biden is a walking gaffe machine,who specializes in offending large numbers of people. It was Hillary,however, who addressed a black audience in an Amos n' Andy voice, offendedItalians by calling Al D'Amato "Senator Tomato," and said it's notpossible to be both a Republican and a Christian.Even Biden's infamous remark that "you cannot go into a 7-Eleven or aDunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent" can't top Mrs.Clinton's joke that Mahatma Gandhi "ran a gas station down in St. Louisfor a couple of years." These previous episodes of hers would not likelyaffect this year's presidential campaign, but she is fully capable ofproducing more of them, faster than the media are able to shovel them downthe memory hole.-- Daniel Clark is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance. The NewMedia Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers,journalists and grass-roots media outlets.