By Daniel Levisohn

As a number of commentators have pointed out, the real presidential campaign starts this week. The American people will get formally introduced to Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the entire Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, which began last night. It’s hard to image what more we might find out about Obama, but I am excited to learn about Biden. The only Biden factoid I knew before the Veep announcement was that he once called Obama “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." How nice they are now on the same ticket!

But, really, I had no idea Biden became a senator at the age of 30; that he lost a wife and a daughter to a drunk driver; that his father grew up privileged, but had lost all of his family’s money by the time Joe was born. I also didn’t know that Biden once told reporters he would be “honored to run with or against John McCain,” a comment that is now being circulated in a new McCain advertisement throughout key states.

So what do you all think of the choice? Does it undermine Obama’s change message that he picked a running mate who has spent nearly all of his adult life in Washington politics, as Susan suggests? Does it reassure you that Obama would have a vice president regarded for his foreign policy expertise, or does it just prove that Obama isn’t ready to be president? And could Biden be the next Dick Cheney, a behind the scenes manipulator, too old to run for president again if Obama is elected and wholly unaccountable?