CLEAREST VIEW ON BIDEN

A lot has been written and said about Sen. Joe Biden's unfortunate description of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, most of it clouded by the self-interest of those doing the saying or the writing.

Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, guest-blogging on Taegan Goddard's Political Wire today, offered what I find to be the most prescient comments on the incident.

Rothenberg argues that what Biden was trying to say is that Obama is the first African-American candidate with a serious chance of winning the White House.

"In fact, Biden’s general point was right. None of the previous African American candidates had a chance of winning. Some had checkered pasts and had uttered their own controversial comments (possibly making them not "clean," in Biden's use of the term). Others simply lacked the national stature and leadership style that credible contenders need. Obama is a different kind of candidate. And that's all Biden meant." -- Stuart Rothenberg.

Rothenberg who has his own blog, The Rothenberg Political Report, always gives it to you straight, and often is at odds with the conventional wisdom. It's worth a look.

Taegan Goddard's PoliticalWire, while we're passing out kudos, is a great place to keep up not only with the day-to-day of the '08 campaign but also on national politics in general and state and local politics of broad interest.