By now, it's quite possible the vice presidential nomination is a done deal: Barack Obama has already spoken to the nominee, along with the other finalists, and all that remains is for everybody's cell phones to start ringing or vibrating with text messages.*
(I'd love to be in Washington right now: Will they all go off at once? What will it sound like at the Palm--or in one of the Dupont Circle Starbucks?)
Still, I can't help but note how absolutely perfectly John McCain's housing comments would play to Joe Biden's political strenghts. According to the financial disclosure statements, compiled at opensecrets.org, Biden is the least wealthy member of the Senate. And he's famously good at connecting with working-class voters, at least when he's not using somebody else's words. (This seems like a good time to mention that, if Biden is the nominee, I hope somebody at the Obama campaign read his past statements, including his book, very carefully for evidence of exaggerations or similarly borrowed language.)
Of course, McCain's housing statement is just one incident. But it's safe to assume this isn't the last we've heard that McCain is out of touch with the economic anxieties of average Americans. A running mate like Biden could come in handy.
Note: Jack Reed, who also has a working-class background, is similarly well-positioned to make economic elitism an issue, albeit without the same flair for which Biden is known. I mention this only because Obama's statements about an ideal vice presidential candidate, as relayed by Karen Tumulty over at Time's Swampland, sound suspiciously to me like a description of Reed. Over at the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol seems to think the very same thing I do. (Yes, that's a sentence I've never imagined I would put in print.)
*Update: Just to clarify, I'm saying all of this could have happened already. I have literally no idea if it really has.
--Jonathan Cohn