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I would not vote for a pro-choice candidate, so I would not be supporting Obama whoever he picked as vice-president Perhaps he has factored that in and decided to ignore life issues entirely in picking Biden.

William has raised this point before - but how much does American popular culture factor in to the election? Will President Santos and the Presidents Palmer have anything to say about the outcome of the election?

GV

Perhaps Obama picked Biden as the best of a weak field, the least worst of a sorry lot of bad choices available. This is because there are so many opportunities in America for anyone with the talent and ambition to do anything of real value in life, nobody of that caliber would think of wasting it by going into government. Unlike many other nations, working for the government is often looked down upon in America as the place losers wind up, an employer of last resort. Elected office is a place for third rate hack attorneys to skate by by passing laws for the benefit of friends who give them money in return. There are far better and more honest ways to make a living in America.

It's a difficult electoral equation for Obama: he needs the foreign policy help and he can't really afford to alienate religious voters. Another angle on this is being emphasised by McCain's team right now. They're saying that the choice of Biden is an admission by Obama that he is weak on foreign policy.

Slightly off-thread but I wonder if Archbishop Burke has felt it necessary to have a word with Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor re his reception of Tony Blair into the Roman church?

Reading the article referenced in the post the Archbishop makes the Church's position crystal clear.

He states that when a prominent public figure who has upheld abortion rights is allowed to receive Communion the scandal is compounded: "leading people to think that the public act that this person is doing," a sin, "which until now everyone believed was a serious sin, is really not that serious."

When Murphy-O'Connor shared the Eucharist with Blair he seemed to have no such reservations and exemplified perfectly the pragmatic hypocrisy of Roman Catholicism with its willingness to relieve the rich and powerful of the strictures it places on the mass of its followers.

It will be truly interesting to see if Archbishop Burke's words are anything more than hot air - I am not holding my breath!

What does Obama gain with this man? If his years as a Catholic have taught him nothing about being a Catholic, why would his years on the foreign affairs committee have taught him anything. Also it comes across as an admission of weakness in this area.

As regards Portwyne's question on Tony Blair - can he point to any pro-choice statements by tony Blair since his conversion - that's the point of conversion, you change.

Now I don't think for one minute myself that Tony has changed his views - but in the absence of comment we must give him the benefit of the doubt.

Smasher I am afraid you have missed my point - I am not really interested in Tony Blair, I am interested in what the nature of his reception into the Roman church says about that church - particularly in the light of the Archbishop Burke's comments which are linked above. I could consider - and indeed do consider - that failing to ask for an act of public contrition prior to admission to the Eucharist could lead the average person to think that 'up to a point' (if you are famous enough) it is OK 'to do away with' Catholic doctrine.

I also made the point that I am waiting with interest to see if the archbishop will follow through on his words should Biden become Vice President - but, as I said above, I am not holding my breath.

Portwyne - you've missed my point which is that the act of conversion and reception into the Catholic Church is a formal public act - an embracing of the Catholic belief and renunciation of past sin. No one becoming a Catholic is asked to list their previous mistaken views and publicly recant them, but the presumption is that becoming a Catholic means just that.

We have no way of knowing if his conversion is genuine and inclusive - but it only makes sense to judge him on his statements since becoming a Catholic, not before hand.

Of course I would love if he came out and publicly embraced a pro-life, anti-contraception position - but his wife wouldn't like it.