In a bit of a surprise, John McCain taps Sarah Palin to be his Vice President.  For over a week, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Joe Lieberman were being talk about as the potential pick, though Palin’s name had been mentioned in the past.  Succeeding where the Obama campaign didn’t, the announcement of Palin was kept a secret until the hour of the event.  The success of this secret kept the media’s attention from continuing coverage of the post-Obama speech last night during the closing of the DNC convention.

Being a “dark horse” candidate, there isn’t much that the public knows about her.  She holds a bachelors degree in journalism with a minor in political science.  In 1992, she was elected to the City Council of Warsilla, Alaska, and held that position for four years.  In 1996, she became Mayor, holding the position for 6 years.  She was elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors during her second term.  In 2003 and 2004, she served as the Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.  In 2006, she won an upset election to become Governor of Alaska, where she currently serves.

Related articles:
Vulcan’s Hammer: “I love Sarah Palin!”
Tom Rants: “McCain’s Judgement: Guns, experience, politics”
The Spitting Vessel: “GOP’s Gender Gambit”
The Law of Politics: “McCain picks Palin”
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Republican Ranting: “Live Analysis of McCain’s Speech Officially Making Sarah Palin His Running Mate”
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Congratulations Barack Obama on becoming the first biracial/black person to be nominated President for a major political party. Enjoy the moment.

Tonight launches the main portion of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, CO, essentially starting the general election campaign. This week is the Democrats turn to establish their platform for the next few months while painting their nominee is the best light as possible to make a good impression on the general public. These events have become carefully orchestrated to avoid potential floor battles or prime time speeches that create controversy for the party. With each race, a party faces a few issues leading into the Conventions, and this one is no different. Here is a quick look at some of the problems the Democratic Party and the Obama Campaign have to work around heading into tonight’s Convention.

Hillary Clinton – This is probably the largest of the “two-headed” issue for the Obama Campaign this week. Hillary Clinton was Obama’s main challenger during the Primary process, staying match-step with him with states won and delegates awarded for five months of the campaign. Locking up over 18 Million votes across the country, she carries a lot of weight in this year’s election, and due to that influence comes committed supporters. A significant proportion of her supporters are not happy, feeling that they had the election stolen from Hillary with the states of Florida and Michigan not being counted in the delegate totals, small states that Obama carried providing more delegates than some of the larger states that Hillary carried, and the sense that gender was sidelined by race. However, the largest swipe was the fact that Hillary was not considered for the Vice Presidential position by Obama, instead choosing Joe Biden for the job.

Hillary’s delegates – In addition to the protestors outside the Convention, Obama (and Hillary) have to worry about delegates on the Convention floor. In order to maintain stability and unity, “whip teams” are deployed among the delegates to ensure no protests are started to distract from the message of the person on the stage. Additionally, a roll call vote will be done during the Convention as an agreement with Party members to ensure that Hillary receives fair treatment, hoping to pacify the Hillary supporters. Some states require delegates to vote in the manner that they were selected, meaning that some are required to vote for Hillary even though she has released her delegates to Obama. Additionally, some delegates and superdelegates have stated publicly that they will vote for Hillary regardless. A high vote total for Hillary might show that there is not unity within the party yet, possibly weakening Obama’s message for the week.

Bill Clinton – The last two-term Democratic President has not been a strong supporter of Obama following the end of the Primary process. He has felt that he was targeted by the Obama camp, accused the camp of playing the race card against the Hillary campaign and himself, and ignored by the Obama camp leading into the Convention this week. When he was informed of his scheduled night and time to make a presentation at the Convention, he was given a topic (Securing America’s Future) to speak on. Unfortunately, this is not the topic that he wanted to speak on, referencing his strong record on the economy and Democratic Party unity and ideals. This has reinforced his reason for not using his political power to help secure a victory for Obama leading into November.

John Edwards – What can only be seen as a sigh of relief that the news didn’t break a week or two later, the Democratic Party is suffering from the shocking announcement that the 2004 Vice Presidential nominee and the third-place delegate winner of the 2008 primary committed adultery while on the campaign trail. What makes it worse is the fact that his wife is suffering from cancer. With rumors that he might have also fathered a child in this relationship, the Democratic Party had to scramble to marginalize Edwards in order to not lose too much of the ‘family values’ influence they have gained over the past two years following some key Republican scandals. Once courted by both Hillary and Obama, Edwards was the focus of the media for a month while the two leading candidates held key private meetings with the one-term Senator with win his support and the support of his followers. This also hurt the chance of the Party surrogates of using McCain’s first marriage against him without Edwards popping up in the discussion. Combine this with the strong core support McCain received following his public statement during the Saddleback forum just a few weeks ago, taking full blame for the failure of his first marriage, the “chip” has all but been removed from the table.

Joe Biden – While probably the safest pick Obama could make to fill in some key gaping holes in his campaign platform, Biden does not come without risks. For starters, Obama won a lot of key support during the Primaries on the platform that he had the foresight to oppose the land battle with Iraq in 2003. Biden, one of his primary challengers, not only voted for the war but also strongly defended the reason to do so back in 2002. Another point of contention with one of Obama’s key platform points is the need of change from politics as usual. Biden has been a Senator for 35 years, or almost the entire life of Obama. One of the more vocal and liberal Senators in DC, Biden is easily seen as a part of that establishment politics that Obama campaigned against. This contradiction on a key issue for Obama creates the impression on conflict with Obama’s message, and created doubt in the undecided voters.

Michelle Obama – The strongest and most vocal supporter of Obama is his wife, Michelle Obama. Unfortunately, her early strength in front of the camera created a lot of doubt, concern, and even fear in some of the general public. This initial impression was followed up with her highly criticized comment of being “proud of her country for the first time in her adult life,” implying that there was nothing about our country that she liked before hand. As a result, she was removed from the media attention while the campaign worked on reinventing her image, sending her on a circuit of the morning talk shows to reintroduce herself. Tonight will be her first major speech to the public as a whole to reintroduce her husband and their family, and this has the media covering her prime time speech with a microscope; picking apart every word she says and her body language.

Time – Obama’s message of Hope and Change filled the void in many people who felt that the country has lost its way, people who were down on their luck, and disenfranchised Democrats who still harbored ill will following the loss of the 2000 election. Tied with a fantastic ability to speak in front of a large crowd, Obama was able to form a strong base around him that was unbreakable. If the primaries started a few months later, the momentum of the message of Hope and Change would carry him through November. However, the shine of the message started to fade leading into the summer, highlighted by a major address in Germany. This caused some followers and many on the fence to step back and reexamine what Obama is bringing to the ballot, leading to a closer look at his record and his stances on the issues. While being able to explain away some of his position changes over the two year campaign (such as universal health care), changes in stances on wiretapping and off-shore drilling has caused soft supporters to break away as well as stoked heavy criticism by members on the far left.

This is just a sampling of what lies before Obama and the Democratic Party. If they can address most of these issues, Obama stands a good chance of not only putting the White House back in the hands of the Democrats, put also pair it with a Democratically-controlled Congress. With special appearances by the ailing Ted Kennedy, and an outdoor address by Obama on Thursday during prime time media coverage, Obama has a lot of positives in his favor in 2008. Tonight starts the general election, and with the polls currently tied between Obama and McCain, it is important that the negatives don’t overshadow the positives, possibly costing him and election that is his to lose.

Related articles:
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The Washington Post – “Clinton Advisers Skipping Obama Speech”
NY Daily News – “John Edwards calling former staffers asking for forgiveness”
International Herald Tribune – “Clinton delegates back Obama, but poll shows concern”
God-o-Meter – “McCain’s Greatest Moral Failure Pays Off”
Politicususa – “Clinton and Obama Shoot Down Rumors of Convention Disunity”
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Vulcan’s Hammer – “The tide of Liberalism and America”

As we were expecting, Barack Obama taps Joe Biden to be his Vice President. After a few days of hype and speculation, bouncing between Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and even Chet Edwards today, the announcement for Vice President came without a text message but rather the traditional announcement over the TV media. Biden will be joining Obama in Illinois on Saturday for a joint appearance to officially introduce the ticket together and to start the media lead-up into the Democratic Convention next week.

Joe Biden, or as we call him “Mr. Foreign Relations,” fills in one of the key areas where Obama is weak – Foreign Relations. This helps minimize the impact that McCain has on the public relations debate, where most of the current rise in polls the past few weeks has been coming from for McCain. But remember, Biden called for breaking up Iraq into three federated states and was against the surge, so McCain might be able to incorporate the success of the surge as a decent counter-argument against Biden’s foreign policy views. Additionally, Biden voted for re-entering Iraq in 2003. Obama has campaigned on how he had the foresight to be against the war, so this will be another potential advertisement point for the McCain camp. Now McCain needs to pick someone who can handle the verbal skills of Biden, which means that it will probably be Mitt Romney.

Related articles:
Al Jazeera – “Obama ‘picks running mate’”
The Daily Voice – “The Secret is Out”
Yahoo News – “Official:  Obama picks Biden for Veep”
Breitbart – “Biden speaks – and speaks – his own mind”
U.S. Senate – “U.S. Senate Roll Call vote on the Joint Resolution 114″
Chicago Tribune – “Biden:  Iraq surge success a ‘fantasy’”
Associated Press – “Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence”
Tom Rants – “The Vice-Presidential Picks”
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Washington Interns Gone Bad – “Blue Delaware”
Tom Rants – “The Message is Here”
Republican Ranting – “Rasmussen Poll: Joe Biden Helps Obama as Much as He Hurts Him”
Polisicks – “This could not be better.”
Killer Buffalo – “For Obama, Biden is a Change in Focus”
Globally Rational – “What does Biden tell us?”
Disillusioned Words – “Obama Made the Best Possible Choice for a Running Mate”

 NOTE:  This article has been revised as of 10:12pm on 8/22/2008 due to an analytical error.

Based on current polls, there isn’t much change in 2008 from 2004.  The three states that change are Iowa, Nevada, and New Mexico; all three switching in favor for Obama.  Now, if you thought Florida was bad in the 2000 elections, you haven’t seen anything yet.  You see, in the map above, the electoral vote counts for both Obama and McCain is 269, or in other words, it is a tie.  That’s right, folks – a tie.

In the case of a tie (which means no one reached 270 electoral votes), the election moves to Congress where the House of Representatives picks the President while the Senate picks the Vice President.   Each state will be given one vote, so the state delegations would have to come to some sort of conclusion as to how the state will cast their vote.  If the House does not choose a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice President will serve as acting President until a President is chosen by the House.

Just for a trial, let’s look at how the states would vote for President and Vice President based upon the party majority of their Representatives and Senators.  (See individual state data at the end of the article.)

With the way the House currently stands, Obama would win 27 states, McCain would win 21, and 2 states are tied.  So, you would have President Obama accepting the oath of office assuming the states voted among the majority of the Representatives.  (NOTE:  The changes to the article follows.)  The Vice President race, however, might result in a Republican taking the oath due to the equal partisan split in the Senate.  There are 49 Republican Senators and 49 Democratic Senators.  With 2 Independent Senators (one leaning Democratic and one leaning Republican), it would be more likely that a Vice President (rather than President) not being chosen on Inauguration day.

Alabama:
House – 5 Republicans, 2 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Alaska:
House – 1 Republican (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Arizona:
House – 4 Republicans, 4 Democrats (tie)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Arkansas:
House – 1 Republican, 3 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

California:
House – 19 Republicans, 34 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Colorado:
House – 3 Republicans, 4 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Connecticut:
House – 1 Republican, 4 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 1 Democrat, 1 Independent

Delaware:
House – 1 Republican (McCain)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Florida:
House – 16 Republicans, 9 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Georgia:
House – 7 Republicans, 6 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Hawaii:
House – 2 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Idaho:
House – 2 Republicans (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Illinois:
House – 8 Republicans, 11 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Indiana:
House – 4 Republicans, 5 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Iowa:
House – 2 Republicans, 3 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Kansas:
House – 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats (tie)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Kentucky:
House – 4 Republicans, 2 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Louisiana:
House – 4 Republicans, 3 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Maine:
House – 2 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Maryland:
House – 2 Republicans, 6 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Massachusetts:
House – 10 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Michigan:
House – 9 Republicans, 6 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Minnesota:
House – 3 Republicans, 5 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Mississippi:
House – 1 Republican, 3 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Missouri:
House – 5 Republicans, 4 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Montana:
House – 1 Republican (McCain)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Nebraska:
House – 3 Republicans (McCain)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Nevada:
House – 2 Republicans, 1 Democrat (McCain)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

New Hampshire:
House – 2 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Republicans

New Jersey:
House – 6 Republicans, 7 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

New Mexico:
House – 2 Republicans, 1 Democrat (McCain)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

New York:
House – 6 Republicans, 23 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

North Carolina:
House – 6 Republicans, 7 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Republicans

North Dakota:
House – 1 Democrat (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Ohio:
House – 11 Republicans, 6 Democrats, 1 vacant (McCain)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Oklahoma:
House – 4 Republicans, 1 Democrat (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Oregon:
House – 1 Republican, 4 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Pennsylvania:
House – 8 Republicans, 11 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Rhode Island:
House – 2 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

South Carolina:
House – 4 Republicans, 2 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

South Dakota:
House – 1 Democrat (Obama)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Tennessee:
House – 4 Republicans, 5 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Texas:
House – 19 Republicans, 13 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Utah:
House – 2 Republicans, 1 Democrat (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans

Vermont:
House – 1 Democrat (Obama)
Senate – 1 Democrat, 1 Independent

Virginia:
House – 8 Republicans, 3 Democrats (McCain)
Senate – 1 Republican, 1 Democrat

Washington:
House – 3 Republicans, 6 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

West Virginia:
House – 1 Republican, 2 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Wisconsin:
House – 3 Republicans, 5 Democrats (Obama)
Senate – 2 Democrats

Wyoming:
House – 1 Republican (McCain)
Senate – 2 Republicans