I’ve been off in the country, without computer, for the past week so I am chiming in on the Biden pick after all of my fellow Cornerites have said much that I agree with. But, when I first heard the news I was actually stunned at the choice. It seemed like an unadorned statement of insecurity. I never thought he would choose Hillary. That might have bought him the election — maybe. But Obama knew he couldn’t stand up to her and wisely didn’t want to deal with it. I expected a white, male governor, with whom the “Hope” and “Change” message would be underscored by the image of youth, vigor and generational change. That worked pretty well for Clinton/Gore. Instead we get the “not so sure of himself son asking dad to back him up” imagery. (Liberals who think that that sounds like Bush/Cheney should consider what they thought of that dynamic.) That is the right thing for an inexperienced man, and the obvious thing for a fatherless boy to do. But maybe not a leader of the free world.

Joe Biden embodies so much of what Obama claims to want to change — in particular, a Washington of time servers in love with process, casual about morality, and acutely aware of self-interest. Biden is no intellectual. He’s smart enough for a U.S. senator. But he brings no depth to the ticket. As others have mentioned, he brings Washington experience, which is different than real experience. He has never run anything or made anything happen. He is not presidential material, and no one, except Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder — and the man to whom they reported — has ever been confused on that score.

And, of course, Biden talks too much. Others have noted the plagiarism, the frequent gaffes and the fact that he cannot speak in a straight line: subject followed by predicate, full stop. Biden wanders till he gets back to the point. He thinks so much because he does not have firm ordering principles — though he is a quick study with the talking points. And even the likability to which writers on this page and elsewhere have referred, is based on an everyman quality that is the opposite of charisma or natural leadership. (Obama has the first. Maybe not the second.)

Here is what Joe Biden does have: he sounded pretty real talking about the plight of the middle class in his speech this weekend. He sounded as if he knew, firsthand, what those kitchen-table financial anxieties are like. (Barack’s liberalism is much more abstract; he hits different emotions.) Biden was totally on target there. If you have a family, you have to be very wealthy, and very insulated just now to avoid noticing that the prices of groceries, gasoline, health care and clothing have skyrocketed — and probably being concerned because, your income probably has not. Worrying about it is normal, which is different from questioning the fundamental soundness of the economy. Joe Biden sounded as if he understands and cares.

The issue of hard choices is now showing up in consumer advertising — a great bellwether of the zeitgeist. The GOP ticket has got to be able to make Americans know that they understand this, because they live it too. Middle-class tax cuts and significant child deductions are good policy points — and should be made over and over. But what really registers with voters are emotional cues that convey empathy. John McCain will be a fine commander-in-chief. But can he convey honest empathy to people who are scrimping more than they are used to doing? Maybe. I don’t really think so. Someone on his ticket is going to have to do it.

Pundits are making the wrong call when they look for the GOP vice-presidential candidate who will be best in policy in debates with Biden, or who will be a more useful attack dog. To be sure, those are important tasks. And it is true that Mitt Romney could do them very well — and that he spots Biden a bunch of I.Q. points, an education and a record of accomplishment. But can Mitt successfully empathize with the middle class for the duration of this campaign and after? He couldn’t do it in the primaries. It isn’t who he is.

Because Biden is essentially a mediocrity, McCain has more leeway than expected to choose someone who is not entirely prime-time ready. We are back to the two governors who are young, totally real, quintessentially middle class family guys, and, like Joe Biden, up from working class backgrounds: Sarah Palin of Alaska and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. She is less sophisticated, but is a walking testament to American middle class pluck and achievement. And she will pull some female Democrat voters in. He is smart, good on policy, and has an excellent, first-generation-to-college, up by the bootstraps story. Because they really are middle-class Americans, middle-class American voters are far more likely to believe it when either of them express empathy and a desire to tackle the nation’s economic anxieties. That will be the campaign’s central issue, and there is no faking it.