Biden owes everything to Obama
The attack on Obama’s record by some of the more far-left Democratic presidential candidates is unsurprising, despite the fact that Obama is still a highly regarded figure among Democrats.
For one thing, they want to take this country much further to the left than he ever did, because they seem to think that’s a winning hand. I hope they’re wrong about that, but that’s their calculation. Obama paved the way, of course, and the Overton window has moved quite a bit. But if they were to praise Obama unduly, they would inadvertently be praising Biden, who peddled along as his Veep and would get the draft if the other candidates lauded Obama overly.
Thus, the condemnation—not of Obama himself, but of some of his policies.
Meanwhile, think about Biden himself. What does he bring to the plate, other than having a lot of experience in government (not necessarily good experience, but experience nonetheless) and having been Obama’s VP?
Biden never had much of a following prior to being picked by Obama. Maybe he did in Delaware; after all he was the US senator from Delaware for 36 years, from January 1973 to January 2009, beginning when Biden was 30 years old. Delaware is a very blue state, and unless someone had tried to unseat Biden, he was going to be elected term after term.
Biden ran for president in 1988 and didn’t do all that well. Among other things, he was dogged by plagiarism charges. He didn’t try again till 2007-2008:
Overall, Biden had difficulty raising funds, struggled to draw people to his rallies, and failed to gain traction against the high-profile candidacies of Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton; he never rose above single digits in the national polls of the Democratic candidates. In the initial contest on January 3, 2008, Biden placed fifth in the Iowa caucuses, garnering slightly less than one percent of the state delegates. Biden withdrew from the race that evening, saying “There is nothing sad about tonight. … I feel no regret.”
Biden’s appeal seemed relatively local and limited to habit and to Delaware. He was perceived as affable and somewhat mediocre. But Obama saw that he could be useful to Obama’s candidacy, acting as the voice of experience and moderation:
Despite the lack of success, Biden’s stature in the political world rose as the result of his 2008 campaign. In particular, it changed the relationship between Biden and Obama. Although the two had served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they had not been close, with Biden having resented Obama’s quick rise to political stardom, and Obama having viewed Biden as garrulous and patronizing. Now, having gotten to know each other during 2007, Obama appreciated Biden’s campaigning style and appeal to working class voters, and Biden was convinced that Obama was “the real deal.”
But now, in what ordinarily would have been his sunset years, Biden is the frontrunner in the Democratic race against opponents half his age, merely because he is perceived as relatively safe. No one is enthusiastic about him, as far as I can tell. Few people ever were. But although never popular, he is the happy beneficiary of a set of unusual circumstances, and at the age of 76 (he would be about two weeks from 78 at the time of the 2020 election, and if he won he would be 78 when sworn in, the oldest president ever by quite a few years) he is poised for at least the possibility of the greatest success of his life.
No wonder Biden’s defending Obama. Obama’s choice of him as VP is what gave Biden this shining moment.
“What does he bring to the plate . . . ?”
I’m gonna go with botox. That’s about it.
If there was some responsible control within the Democratic party they would have picked one of the women, probably not Warren, maybe Harris and told the rest of the crowd to settle down and then polish that witch from every angle taking all the rough nutty crap away and make her the only obvious choice for responsible leadership in the USA and then let Trump bash the hell out her and they might have had a chance. With all the rush to the left I am thinking Trump will have to step on his dangling participle in a real big way in order to lose, which might just happen.
As for Biden, he is just the oldest and appearing much older every time they dress him up and take him out, were he one of the seven dwarfs he would be ‘Sleepy’, in the running with Sleazy, Greasy, etc. and they need a clean up on aisle 7.
Biden brings corruption to the plate.
#JoeChina
His son, Hunter, accompanies him on VP trip to China and comes away with $1.5 Billion contract.
Biden has a Ukraine DA fired because he was investigating Biden’s son and threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine until it is done. There were millions of $ from Ukraine to Hunter as well.
And remember that Biden said that China was no threat to he US.
You mean China Joe?
When is someone going to ask China Joe what he knew about the illegal government spying on the Trump campaign and when did he know it?
I’d ask China Joe that question if he ever bothers to take questions from us flyover people. Maybe the Press could ask him that question. People want to know!
Just the other day China Joe said the Texas shooting was in Houston and he thought Dayton was in Michigan.
I’d short Biden right now if he was a stock. He’s finished.
China Joe. China Grove. Doobie Brothers. Get it?
Trump will use China Joe if Biden makes it to the general.
He doesn’t even bring an appetite to the table.
He’s not hungry for it.
He’ll take it if it’s offered.
C’mon Man!
What is Joe Biden’s most notable accomplishment? Hair plugs.
The candidate will probably be Harris, who has big money CA behind her, or Warren who is almost as Socialist as Bernie.
It will make an interesting election. I can’t think of one with the issues more clearly drawn since 1860.
2008 was 1932 all over again. Coolidge saw the 1929 crash coming and got his family out of stocks. He felt that only the Governor of New York had the power to rein in the Stock Market and that, of course, was Roosevelt. In 2008, McCain was clueless ands Obama was the same but smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
I almost feel sorry for Uncle Joe. He is out gunned and has long been one can white, oldshort of a six pack. His lead in the polls puzzles me. He’s white, old, and about as excit
Oops…as exciting as the uncle who falls asleep before the Thanksgiving Day football game.
A Biden/Harris ticket. Then the day after he is sworn in as President, he eats a bowl of cherries and dies, mysteriously. Thus the first Black Woman President.
No, parker, I don’t feel sorry for Uncle Joe. He was not too many miles from me in 2012 when he claimed that Romney and Ryan (!!) wanted to put blacks back in chains. And in the Senate he helped birth the new vicious confirmation battle approach. He and Ted Kennedy were just plain bad for the USA.
China Joe may well be the most corrupt politician in D.C.
The only principle the man has is “better my pocket than yours”.
We are witness to Jefferson and Washington’s polar opposite.
Then the day after (Biden) is sworn in as President, he eats a bowl of cherries and dies, mysteriously.
And they will blame it on President Trump.
And in return Barry Soetoro owes everything to Joe.
Biden after all is Barry’s Anubis, the last one guarding his name and legacy.
Back in 1988 Robert Altman and Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) teamed up to do a mockumentary miniseries titled “Tanner ’88,” in which Michael Murphy played a presidential candidate, Jack Tanner, running in the Democratic primaries.
What’s apropos is that even back then — thirty years ago — Biden was something of a joke.
Here’s Tanner speaking to his discouraged team in the first episode. TJ is his campaign manager (played by the marvelous Pamela Reed) and Lexy is his daughter (Cynthia Nixon in maybe her debut):
You know, TJ, just before you called me last spring Lexy and I went down to the Democratic Leadership conference in South Carolina. The last night we were sitting around Kirk O’Donnell and Hart, Biden … a couple of the other candidates were shooting the breeze about how much the party had changed since the sixties. And suddenly out of the blue Lexy turned and asked Hart who his favorite Beatle was.
At first Hart just laughed and stumbled around, trying to remember a name. Then she repeated her question for Biden and Biden said, well, he’d never been a Beatles fan, he was into jazz. And Dukakis answered Paul, ’cause he liked his wife or something.
Now I don’t know if Lexy knows the names of all the Beatles herself, let alone the answer to her own question, but it suddenly dawned on me that I sure as hell did. And I knew for sure that anybody who didn’t, had absolutely no claim to generational leadership.
Now I must have ten years on Joe Biden but damn it, he wasn’t paying attention back then and I was.
Tanner continues in an impromptu passionate speech to his troops:
____________________________________________________
and one of the things I figured out very early on
is that the singer mattered as much as the song
that ideas were only as valuable as the people who got behind them
I mean people that wouldn’t settle
people unafraid of honest inquiry
people who didn’t mind asking the impertinent question
God…the impertinent question
where the hell would we be without it?
it’s the glory and the engine of all human experience
Copernicus asked it — shook the foundations of his world
Darwin asked it — he is repudiated to this day
Thomas Jefferson asked it — so invigorated by it he declared it to be an inalienable right
I’m not smart enough to know all the answers
but I do know
we’ve got to keep asking the questions
that’s what the American experiment is all about
it’s at the very core of our character as a people
we owe our vigor to its constant renewal
you know I don’t have much patience for these guys who go around
saying the pride is back in America
for some of us it never left
Vietnam may have covered some patriots in shame but not this one
we got in there for moral reasons and by God
we got out of there for moral reasons
where else on this earth
does such debate center on anything other than expediency
only in America
Watergate? — triumph of the system
how could anybody watch Barbara Jordan thunder away at those House hearings
and not feel a surge of pride in the miracle of this country?
and there are those people who will tell you that
our noisy dissent our raucous squabble
weakened us as a country caused us to lose our supremacy
don’t you believe it
we are the envy of this world
why?
because throughout our history
we have always maintained that we could do better
we’ve insisted that we could do better
we’ve always been willing to reinvent ourselves for the common good
and in our darkest hour leaders — real leaders — have always stepped forward
to hold the American people to the responsibility of citizenship
well it’s time for that kind of leadership now
and I’m not sure that it’s me
but I’d like the chance to find out
____________________________________________________
One can argue with portions of Tanner’s address, but he does represent a type of Democrat and Democratic spirit which went extinct with some recent asteroid strike. That’s the kind of Democrat I thought I was.
What does he bring to the plate
Well, I’d say his love for America is touching…
What does he bring?
Well, he’s not bat-shit crazy. So better than half the field.
Mike K. : I don’t think Harris survives Gabbard’s attack,
Hey, Cornhead, Biden is going to Iowa. If he turns up near you, you can ask him those questions — maybe.
I am sickened this morning reading headline after headline about Biden saying Trump is about “hate, hate, hate.” Look in the mirror, Joe.
No wonder Biden’s defending Obama. Obama’s choice of him as VP is what gave Biden this shining moment. –neo
And, aside from occasional polite boilerplate, Obama is not defending Biden.
As the only moderate candidate with name recognition, Biden is positioned to take the nomination, but nothing else lines up. He is old, white, male, charisma-less and even at his prime, not very fast or smart.
I give Michelle Obama more of a chance, except I take her word that she really does not want to run.
It will be interesting when someone lands another solid blow and Biden breaks open like pinata and the other candidates scramble for his voters.
Biden is a dead man walking. He might be the last person to know it, but the rest of the country is waking up to that reality.
Right now I think Warren has the inside track to the nomination, with Mayor Pete as her running mate. And she reminds me of my third grade teacher, whom I never cared for.
And she reminds me of my third grade teacher, whom I never cared for.
F: You had Mrs. Beck too?
I’ll go with you on Warren. I think the smoke-filled rooms are for Kamala Harris, but she doesn’t seem to have the Right Stuff.
F:
Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are among the few people in the world less “likeable” than Hillary Clinton.