SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (AFP) — Barack Obama and Joseph Biden both fluffed their lines Saturday as the new White House running mates ceded an opening to their Republican enemies by veering off-script under a broiling sun.
The tropical intensity in Civil War president Abraham Lincoln's hometown here certainly took its toll on a crowd numbered at an impressive 35,000 by fire marshals.
At least one woman collapsed as the crowd, dozens deep in front of the Old State Capitol building and around adjacent blocks, sizzled in the long wait for the Democrats to stage their grand entry.
Perhaps feeling the heat as the mercury nudged 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius), Obama made a slip of the tongue as he introduced Biden as "the next president," before correcting it to vice president.
But the campaign of Republican rival John McCain was in no mood to be charitable, calling it a "Freudian slip" that, it said, betrayed the 47-year-old Obama's unreadiness to serve as commander-in-chief.
If the silver-tongued Obama rarely slips up, Biden trails a treasure trove of gaffes that is already feeding the Republican attack machine.
The Delaware senator, 65, was in full cry against McCain when he botched his new boss's name as "Barack America." That triggered corrective chants of "Obama" from the crowd and a rueful smile from the VP hopeful.
Despite the heat and despite squadrons of midges that launched remorseless raids on exposed skin, the audience was pumped up for the rollout of Obama's most important decision yet in this epic White House contest.
Biden bounced onto the stage, jacketless with shirt-sleeves rolled up for action, after the Obama campaign had played possum all Friday with media organizations desperate to confirm the new VP pick's identity.
The campaign had promised to divulge the name in an electronic blizzard of text messages and emails to signed-up supporters. But Biden's selection eventually leaked across the TV networks late Friday, 24 hours after Obama first asked his veteran Senate colleague to come on board.
The hotly anticipated text message finally set cellphones buzzing at 2:00 am Chicago time, rousing reporters from their beds for a frenzy of late-night writing.
Two spokeswomen accompanying Obama on his plane confessed to being kept in the dark themselves, reinforcing signs that the announcement was kept under wraps by a very tight circle at the campaign's seniormost levels.
"It isn't like there was a staff meeting to say 'this is the person'. We were all signed up for the text messages, like you," one of the aides said.
At the event, "Obama-Biden" banners made their debut as the enormous crowd gave a rapturous welcome to the two Democrats standing on the same steps where Obama launched his White House quest on a bitterly cold day in February 2007.
Joyce Jackson, an African-American office manager still working aged 70, dismissed Republican attacks on Biden.
"He brings experience, he brings maturity, he's his own man who can tell you you're wrong with a smile on his face," she told AFP.
"I like the combination of youth and experience, he's a senior just like me!" she said.
Colleen Callahan, a Democrat running for the state's 18th congressional district encompassing Springfield, said Obama had made an "excellent choice."
"He's done what he said he was going to: he's added someone who's not a yes man," she said.
Addressing the objections of some diehard supporters of Obama's vanquished primary rival Hillary Clinton, Callahan said: "There'll probably still be unhappiness.
"It doesn't mean that he and she won't still be confidantes or that she might not end up in his cabinet," she said.
As watchful Secret Service agents monitored the crowd, sweating in their dark suits, Jackson addressed fears in the African-American community and beyond that Obama could be an assassination target.
"I do worry but I do believe that he's got a divine arm of protection around him. So let's pray and put it in God's hands," she said, mopping her brow.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
