What Biden Brings
The least I should say after writing so churlishly yesterday about Obama's lacking fire in the belly for an elemental confrontation wth this country's deepening, interlocking injustices is that picking Joe Biden is a great rebuttal, a credit to Obama on some of the terms in which I challenged him.
Biden has an elemental, working-class sense of justice and is the kind of fighter this campaign has lacked. If he can't coach Obama on how to land some direct punches -- and be funny while doing it -- he'll land 'em himself, Mentored by Hubert Humphrey, Biden is a "Happy Warrior," but with knuckles.
Think of Biden's quip that every one of Rudy Giuliani's sentences consisted of "A noun, a verb, and 9/11." Whether such punch-lines now come from Obama himself (as in the "How many homes?" arena) or from Biden, McCain won't know what hit him.
This doesn't answer the challenges to the republic from corporate capital and the consumer-marketing juggernaut which I flagged yesterday and here and here. But an American campaign is what it is, and it has to be won. After that, if there are ways through Washington's thickets of lobbying and legalism, Biden will be a terrific guide for Obama, who'll listen and choose wisely -- as he has just now.
Biden is a cantankerous fighter, true enough. I wouldn't describe him as a Happy Warrior so much as a Cranky Warrior. As a decision, the Biden pick is safe, unimaginative and uninspiring. It sure doesn't suggest change, but rather a desire to placate the same Beltway Boobs who have been getting everything wrong for so long.
August 23, 2008 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amen Dan! Biden pushed for the bankruptcy bill, which in many ways was worse than the war votes that all of the dems cast. Once more we get to vote for the lesser of two evils.
August 23, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
We 'get' the candidates we are most likely to end up electing. Maybe we'd better take stock of ourselves.
August 23, 2008 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please, Jim. Picking Biden, the archictect of the new bankruptcy laws that are such a large part of our current economic problems, is really an insult to actual liberals.
August 23, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
"the archictect of the new bankruptcy laws that are such a large part of our current economic problems"
The bankruptcy bill is a nasty piece of legislation and should be repealed, but this statement of yours is simply ridiculous.
August 23, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, why?
The current economic collapse was caused by reckless lending. Changing the bankruptcy laws to favor lenders encouraged more reckless lending. There's realy simple cause and effect there. Heck, the market peaked 18 months after the legislation was made into law. It was bad stimulus.
August 24, 2008 11:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm connecting the dots between the '3 a.m. phone call' to Obama supporters and selecting Biden on his foreign policy credentials....
The V.P. guessing game continues........watch McCain select former Gov Tom Ridge for the slot, with Evangelicals then screaming (that will be the entertainment portion of McCain's birthday party next Friday).
But the Republicans must be dragging azz....it's not even 8 a.m. here on the west coast and I have yet to see the first attack ad on Obama/Biden from the McCain campaign...
August 23, 2008 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Biden is not the worst choice by any means and if you want an establisment ticket, he should probably have been at the top of the ticket.
But this fighter everyone is talking about didn't stand up against the war in Iraq abroad or against corporate power over the little guy at home.
If what we're going to get is a postpartisan cozying up to the right, Biden will do that. He was great at it all the times he appeared on Imus. Just don't tell me there's anything "progressive" going on here.
August 23, 2008 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just curious: Who would Dan K and others dumping on Biden have preferred candidate for the veep slot? Hillary Clinton? Evan Bayh? I'm not prejudging the answer, I just would like to know how they think the Democrats at this point might best win the campaign.
Given what we can see coming in terms of the kind of campaign this will be, the Obama side needs a lot more verve and fight than it has shown. I made clear yesterday that I don't think a veep candidate can help very much and that both the fighting spirit and the platform have to come from the presidential contender.
That said, Biden strikes me as more spiritedly combative and funny than any of the other possibilities would have been, and that's desperately needed, given the campaign odds at the moment.
As for policymaking, from bankruptcy to FISA, leave that to Obama and slam him or praise him, not Biden, for how he voted and what role he played, if any, in crafting the legislative deals.
August 23, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jim, I want the veep to be somebody who I'd be comfortable with as president. There's a few people I'd have liked to have seen. Richardson would have worked for me. Hillary would have worked too (I voted for her in the primary so I must believe she'd be a good president).
Howon Earth canBiden's legislative history not matter? What are we supposed to judge the guy on? His yelling ability? He also has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth.
August 23, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I said, Jim, it's a "safe" pick. I fully expect Obama to win, and in the end win handily. I don't think Biden really hurts those chances or does any damage. He's a sop to beltway insiders, and may help somewhat with the media old boys who seem to love him. It's just not a very inspiring or interesting pick. Obama would have showed me more if he had found the guts to go with a less conventional thinker, an outside the beltway, outside of government character who could inject some much-needed new ideas or imaginative vision into the campaign. There are 300 million people in this country. There have to be at least a dozen who are genuinely brilliant and exciting original thinkers, with unquestioned leadership abilities. Why did he have to go with one of the usual suspects.
You know, Congress is at record low levels of popularity. Americans really hate Washington these days. So why go for Mr. Inside? I guess that whole "change" thing is now old hat now.
I will also point out is that my wife's initial comment about the Biden pick was that Obama needs to do a lot of work with women. My wife was a big opponent of Hillary by the way, but lately she says that when she watches Obama, she's just "not feeling the love". I wish Obama could have found a woman who was removed from both Clinton Corruption and Sebelius Somnolence - again, maybe someone outside of government, a CEO-type, and an energetic, bold-thinking go-getter. There must be many such women in this talent-rich country.
I am also somewhat miffed at Biden for his demagogic and intelligence-insulting behavior during the Georgia crisis. That sort of trip appeals to the people who are easily dazzled as a sign of "experience" and "statesmanship", but I thought it was counterproductive and reactionary showmanship.
I think the vice presidency, and the whole "running-mate" tradition, is almost comically overrated. So it doesn't really matter that much to me who Obama picked, other than for symbolic purposes, and I doubt it will play a significant role in the end. As far as Obama needing an "attack dog", he will have no shortage of attack dogs on his side this fall hammering McCain brutally, and saying the indelicate things that must be said. I don't see that there is any particular need to make that guy your running mate. The Republicans have Karl Rove for that job, for example, but I don't think they are making him their vice presidential candidate.
August 23, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bayh would have been the worst. It's a little lonely over here in the Feingold wing. We doh't really have a party just a few voices crying in the wilderness.
August 23, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
There we go! Feingold would have been a great choice.
Back at you Professor Sleeper... Obama could have picked a truly progressive running mate and those of us who don't like the Biden choice aren't without our own ideas about who he could have run with.
August 23, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Feingold would be interesting, but, much as I hate to say it, this may not be a good year for a Jewish liberal. (Joe Lieberman might not hurt McCain, much as Colin Powell might not have hurt, say, Bush, the point being that, for the millions of pepole who still think this way, each man's most prominent birthright -- black or Jewish -- would have been "sanitized" by his militarism (although Lieberman never served.)
I still don't know who else besides Biden or Hillary Clinton (who is obviously more problematic for many voters) could have come out of the box swinging. You can't pick a "fresh face" for veep if you're Barack Obama, especially someone from the corporate world who knows nothing about leading a government.
As for "work with women," I'm not sure how that plays politically at this point. Women who are still bitter about Hillary's loss are digging themselves and the rest of us a hole; too much is at stake for women and everyone else in this election to be holding out on Obama now. In July I attended a suburban Obama fundraiser, with Howard Dean the featured guest, and at one spot along the road leading to the site were several women standing by parked cars holding up "Women for Clinton" signs, obviously for no other reason than to rain on Obama's parade. The effect of this was to remind me of everything I came during the primaries to detest about the Clintons, toward whom I had been open before I saw how hopeless they were as chief executives of a campaign and as political players in a decent society.
If Obama has shortchanged or offended women in some other way than by defeating Clinton, that's another story and it's something I'd like to hear about. But if the fact that he won the primaries is the problem, then the problem -- and a real one -- is not him, but those women who hold it against him.
August 23, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why did it have to be a pol at all? Aren't there other interesting and talented leaders out there who are more than capable of being president?
August 23, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Care to explain that statement?
August 26, 2008 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan K's VP choice for change was Geraldine Ferraro.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/my-vp-prediction-geraldine-fer.php
At first I thought he was being droll.. ....
August 23, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I thought Ferraro would have been a good choice. For one thing, it would have been a shocking and media-frenzy generating pick, the only kind of choice that could have matched the extravagant hype and expectations-raising that preceded this selection - which in hindsight now appears to have been bungled badly. However, subsequently I learned Ferraro was a long-odds cancer survivor who was already well past her warranty date. But I still think someone like Ferraro would have been good: a feisty, fire-breathing, populist, older, white woman, with a track record of giving sass to Obama, with a noted commitment to working people and progressive causes, and one who wasn't a DLC leader and war booster like H. Clinton.
Instead, it's the old boys club all over again.
August 23, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Sass" my ass.
Geraldine Ferraro told CBS' Harry Smith that Obama's best pick would be......Joe Biden.
But, she also employed the same language in FOX interview used by Hillary-supporting delegates and elites who discuss supporting McCain:
"My country comes before my party"
It's become their mantra.
August 23, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
What Biden brings?
Hmmm.
Well Jim, that's a puzzler. What does Biden actually bring to the ticket, apart from his own sweet self.
No actual constituencies per se. I suppose he can fight McCain for the geriatric, millionaire, politically connected white guy vote. Well there's a constituency that's always been perrenially under-represented, lol.
But does Biden have any special cachet with blacks, with women, with immigrants, with working class, with asians, hispanics, new englanders, mid-westerners, southerners, californians, texans, floridans. Does he have any kind of national or regional constituency? Not a farking chance.
Let's face it, there is no regional, or ethnic, or issue based constituency out there, there is no national or sectional constituency which commands any number of votes, which might sway any state, which is sitting there going: "Biden! Biden! He's our guy! Yay Biden!"
Does Biden bring any particular expertise in anything to the table? Well, let's forget about actual experience in administration and governance. There ain't none. He's never held a governorship, he's never run a major city, he's never held a federal cabinet post.
Foreign Policy strength: He voted for the Iraq war, not something I plan to respect. His big plan for Iraq was partition = Morons R Us. At best, his foreign policy thinking is utterly pedestrian and conventional, so deeply mired in the mainstream, so bereft of insight or perspective that it amounts to comfort food lite. At worst, he's a boob, a dangerous one.
Economics? Immigration? Defense? National Security? Don't make me laugh. What books has he published, what symposiums has he given, classes he has taught, what crowning academic acheivements? Fark all, for all it makes a diff.
He's not the worst Vice Presidential choice ever. That would have been Joe Lieberman.
But let's face it, he's dead weight. He's a lifetime Senator, a Washington hack of no particular significance, no particular accomplishment, and no especial value. Obama could have picked a sack of potatoes to be his VP, and it would have brought the same weight to his ticket.
I've been away for a while. But it seems some things never change.
August 26, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink