His campaign would have been a lot easier had he picked Clinton.  I think that would have been a slam dunk winner in Nov.  

Of course the next 4 to 8 years would have been hell.  

Clinton wouldn't have been a good number two.  I am not convinced she even wanted to be number 2.  Obama may not have asked for the fear of looking bad had she said no.  Who knows.

Either way the ticket isn't big enough for the both of them in my opinion.

But now he has even more alienated Clinton supporters to round up and bring back home.  More work to do.  In the end Biden may help win a few them over with his working class Catholic roots.

For pete's sake, it's a tracking poll. I barely pay attention to them. If you wanted a big splash in the polls, then it would've had to be Hillary, Gore or someone similarly high-profile. I saw another poll that said the vast majority of respondents didn't know much or anything about Biden and didn't have an opinion of him. What did you expect?

I'd think Biden's "bounce" would be delayed and gradual--the more undecideds hear and see him, the more they'll come around to the idea of him supplementing Obama in certain areas. I'd imagine it would have more impact down the stretch than it does initially. (Imagine Biden debating a Pawlenty on national security issues.)

Another big hope is that Biden can shore up support in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, or among seniors who voted for Hillary. That won't necessarily show up in a poll.

I'm not sure this is connected, at least until we see how the next few days of the poll are. It could be because of Biden, it could be unrelated, it could just be noise.

A) It's a tracking poll that changed within the margin for error.

B) It's Rasmussen; they pretty consistantly under-poll Democrats.

Okay, I lied.  Three things:

C) I hardly think that any polls just prior to the Convention are going to matter much.

Well, I think Obama will get a convention bounce, but it will not be as large. If McCain is bold and chooses a bold and exciting VP, McCain could come out with a larger convention bounce than Obama. We need to exploit the fact that Bush and Cheney is going to speak on Monday. The biggest problem for Obama is that this convention as become "Can the Clinton's unite the Party."

Still, it does look like this may be the first negative "bounce" from a VP selection in a long time. I still think Obama will win though and win big in November.

since Obama didn't pick Hillary but I still say that perhaps Obama would have won but his first 4 years in the White house would have been HELL and may have cost him a 2nd term.

I agree with Begala when he said that the way to unite the Hillary and Obama factions of the party is to find a common enemy and that is Bush/McCain.  

Just as the Repubs united for McCain because their common enemy is Obama, the Dems will unite for Obama if their common enemy is Bush/McCain.

I don't think Obama was really expecting a bounce, since he knew he was going to have some upset Hillary supporters. I do think we'll see a bounce out of the convention simply because I think we'll draw some true Democrats back in after a few days of beating our agenda. Plus, Obama's speech looks to be packed with concrete ideas, and that will also help.

Correlation does not prove causation.  The daily tracking polls are always noisy.

Let's not be surprised if a VP who is not a game changer did not change the game.

The game remains unchanged, tieD, with Obama marginally ahead.

Now brace yourself for a female VP pick from McCain.

if Obama is not registering at least at 50% in either Gallup or Rasmussen, then it's probably time to reevaluate what happened.  We've got the heavy hitters coming up (HRC, Biden, and Obama); if these three cannot move any numbers and we're tied after the convention, we're probably screwed.  But let's wait and see what the numbers are before we blame Biden.

Biden is an Ok Choice.

He is far better than one of those nobody like Tim Kaine who would have sunk the ticket.

IMHO we all should have known that BO numbers would go down if he didnt name HEC as his VP.  But my guess is this is a blip and not a serious shift.  IMHO after HRC speaks on Wed our numbers will begin to move up and this will continue after Thursday acceptance speach.

david

Those who hang on daily polls and read their portents are doomed to pointless misery.

It makes complete sense that 2% of the electorate would be composed of Dems who wanted Obama to pick Clinton, and now that he didn't they're flirting with voting for McCain.  This number, let's face it, could have been much bigger.  It's an open question whether this reflects any sort of hard preference.  During the primaries poll numbers would jump around by a few points to reflect whatever recent incident made people upset (and that's probably what's happening here).  Could Obama lose this thing?  Sure.

Here's the good scenario.  Now that Obama has picked his VP it's possible all of the "bad news" is now behind him.  I don't see any new big disclosures coming out.  Democrats who are upset because Obama is not Clinton will have to decide in the end whether they really want to vote for McCain.  Some will, others won't, and the result of the election will probably turn on how that shakes out.

I think McCain will take a similar hit, btw, once he names his VP.  He doesn't have any great choices.  I'm still hoping he does something crazy like name Lieberman or Ridge (watch the GOP base go berserk), but if he taps a Romney or Huckabee the Dems who are now on the fence will get the reminder they need that McCain is still a Republican.

The bad scenario, of course, will be if we discover after Labor Day that the country's desire to vote out the Republicans just isn't as strong as the anger which some Clinton supporters have towards Obama or the dislike some Americans have about the prospect of voting for a black candidate in general (which is still one of the powerful undercurrents of this race).

What ever happens, panicking will solve nothing.  If you think about it, there are just too many reasons not to trust that the polls are an accurate indicator of what the outcome will be on election day (the US hasn't had a generation gap this large in a long time, no one knows what turnout will be, the race issue complicates things, as does the common perception that the country is on the "wrong track", there could be some big swings either way during the last two weeks).

So don't worry.  But yes, the Dems could lose.  Nothing worth doing is easy.