So, it's Joe

By Kathy G.

I'm not exactly pleased by Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as a running mate, but then again, I'm not especially surprised, either. This is just one of many actions Obama has taken that signal that he's more about politics-as-usual and supplicating the Beltway elites than he is about substantive change.

True, Obama could have done much worse. Kaine, Bayh, or Chet Edwards, who all were apparently on the short list and came close, would have been a lot harder to take. Biden, at least, opposed FISA, is supportive of civil unions (though not gay marriage) and legislation banning workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians, is good on education and health care, wrote the landmark Violence Against Women Act, and has a mostly decent record on labor and on economic issues (albeit with some major exceptions, which I'll get to later). Biden also shows some promise of being an effective attack dog (as can be seen here), always a helpful quality in a veep, and something Obama desperately needs especially if he himself is determined not to go negative and to hold on to his post-partisan, "let us move beyond the politics of division" message.

Biden does well on television and he's been a national figure for a long time, so I doubt any scandals or nasty surprises will turn up (though we will, I'm sure, be treated to a gleeful rehashing of that silly plagiarism flap from 20 years ago). Another plus is that Biden comes from a working class background and is the least wealthy member of the senate, so he'd be well-positioned to take shots at the Richie Rich lifestyle of the McCains and the reverse Robin Hood politics the Republican Party represents. Finally, as Matthew Yglesias has pointed out, "picking Biden would signal a clear intention to engage with McCain on national security issues rather than try to dodge away from them," and that is a very good and healthy thing. The fact that Biden's son is in the National Guard and is due to be deployed to Iraq this October should give him additional credibility on defense and foreign policy issues.

Some people I respect think highly of Biden. During the primary campaign, Elizabeth Edwards was impressed by his substantive grasp of policy, and so, she said, were the voters. Edwards wrote:

In focus groups that I attended or followed after debates, Joe Biden would regularly be the object of praise and interest: “I want to know more about Senator Biden,” participants would say.

And I can't completely hate on a guy who's given to saying things like, "The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat."

At the very least, Biden is far from the catastrophically awful choice that Gore's selection of Joe Lieberman was (especially in retrospect). Since I'm not exactly enamored with the politics Biden represents, the thing that normally would most concern me is that, if he became vice president, he'd become the prohibitive frontrunner as his party's presidential candidate eight years hence. But fortunately, Biden, at 65, would be too old to run for president in 2016, so that's not a concern here.

Overall, though, Biden leaves much to be desired. Other than the Violence Against Women Act, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with one major, positive accomplishment Joe Biden has had in his 35-year senate career. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he completely screwed up the Clarence Thomas hearings, and we've been living with the unfortunate results ever since. He seems to be a bit too comfortably ensconced in the senate seat he's held since forever, as his suck-up-y 2005 remarks about his good buddy John McCain amply demonstrate.

If Obama wanted someone who could shore up his foreign policy credentials, he could (and should) have gone with Wesley Clark, Jack Reed, or Christopher Dodd. Not only do those three have more progressive records than Biden, but Clark and Reed also opposed the Iraq War from the very beginning. Which points to something I really don't get about Biden: he's pretty much universally lauded by Beltway types and the media establishment for his foreign policy expertise. But if he has such great judgment on foreign policy, why did he support this misbegotten war in the first place? And why does he think partitioning Iraq would be an effective way to resolve the conflict? Many foreign policy types whom I respect think that a partition would be an unmitigated disaster.

Biden's record on choice is weak. He's nominally pro-choice, but he supported the ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions, opposes public funding for abortion, and received a none-too-encouraging rating of 60% from NARAL last year. But what concerns me even more are his votes in favor of limiting the estate tax and "reforming" bankruptcy law. The bankruptcy bill, in particular, was an abomination, and his vote in favor of it was unconscionable. That bill will ruin peoples' lives -- in fact, I'm sure it has already. I've heard the rationale that since Biden is from Delaware, he's "the senator from MBNA" by default, but I don't buy that excuse. Does anyone really think Biden, who's held his senate seat for longer than most Americans have been alive, would have suddenly become politically vulnerable if he'd voted differently? I doubt it. It's not like opposing the bill would have been unpopular with the voters.

Then there's a whole other issue -- call it, the asshole factor. Biden is a hothead and a blowhard, and he's well-known for his habit of making gaffes and unfortunate remarks. Here are some of his greatest hits:

-- From 1987, in response to a question about what kind of grades he got in law school: "I think I have a much higher IQ than you do."

-- From 2006, "I've had a great relationship [with Indian Americans]. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

-- From 2007, about Barack Obama, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

I'll also relay a story about a personal encounter a friend of mine had with Biden. At a campaign event last year, he politely asked Biden to explain his support the bankruptcy bill. Now, this was a controversial, high-profile vote, and I'm sure Biden must have been asked that question about a million times, so you'd think he'd have a good answer for it, right? Wrong! Here's how Biden answered that question: glaring at my friend, he said, "I voted for that bill to make sure guys like you don't skip out on your child support payments!"

My friend was taken aback. It was an incredibly rude and intemperate thing for anyone to say, especially a guy who's been in politics as long as Biden. And what made it sting is that my friend had recently undergone a painful divorce, and his wife, to my friend's sorrow, was granted custody of their kid. Now, my friend is a devoted dad who would never dream of reneging on his child support obligations.  But still -- it was an obnoxious and insulting comment.

And it makes me wonder, how many more stupid and offensive remarks are likely to be coming out of Joe Biden's mouth during the election season? More than one, I'll warrant. And this, in addition to his lackluster record, is why I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea of him on the ticket. Especially when there were a number of far more appealing prospects. I hope I'm wrong, but although I don't see Biden helping Obama all that much, I do see ample cause to be concerned by the damage he might be do.

Comments

[Ted]

Biden — the perfect foil for Palin!

[Chris O.]

Dodd isn't exactly a saint on financial issues either. Witness his cushy loan deal and his seeming unwillingness to bring up legislation to raise the capital gains tax rate. Reed would have been interesting, but I don't think there was enough time to introduce him to American at this point. Plus, RI's governor is a Republican, huge problem. And I would have preferred Clark but clearly the campaign dropped him quick after the stupid POW flap.

Right now I'm mainly thanking my lucky stars it wasn't Bayh, Kaine, or Edwards, like you mention above. Biden does have some points in his favor, he just needs to come up with a good sound bite for why he's not keen on McCain anymore, and to keep his big mouth in check. Who knows how easy the latter will be but I do think he'll be absolutely dedicated to getting Obama in as President.

[George]

He did get an F rating from the NRA, so that's another plus.

[ReddogDem]

About that MBNA money...

So far, every mention I've seen of Biden's ties to the credit card industry tend to portray the relationship as constituent service.

It's rather smellier than that. It's been an open secret in Wilmington that MBNA (not sure what's going on now that it is Bank of America) circulated yearly lists to their employees specifying both WHO they should contribute to (Biden, d'Amato, Bush) and HOW much they should contribute, based on their salary level. Technically you were free not to contribute, but it was always clear that MBNA was keeping track of who gave what, and if you failed to give your designated amount it would be held against you when it came to promotions, bonuses and retention at the company.

MBNA was Biden's largest source of campaign. Biden had to know that what was going on made a mockery of campaign finance regulations as well as basic democratic principles.

[Melinda]

Kinda off-topic, but this "Ted" schmuck has been running around the inner tubes all morning saying "the perfect foil for Palin." I've seen the exact same post on probably 4 other blogs, and there are a lot that I don't read. Get over it, Ted.

I'm somewhat hampered by not knowing everything about everything but the Palin suggestion seems exceedingly unlikely to me, because 1) she just drove legislation passing out big fat fuel supplement checks to every Alaskan eligible for the PFD and that really pissed off the we-hate-welfare crowd, and 2) she's embroiled in what's turning into a scandal around the firing of the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner.

I'm "meh" on Biden. Nice to have a real attacker, nice to have another nominee who came up from a modest start, props to Scrantonites, but business as usual. After that whole period where Obama supporters kept insisting against the clear evidence that Obama was the "real progressive" in the race, there's been a steady stream of DLC-ish actions on Obama's part and I guess even the "he's a real progessive" camp is no longer surprised by this stuff. Pity about abandoning Clark - I agree that was a mistake.

[Observer]

We're already burning down the house electing Obama. A little bit of old fashioned caution is preferable to spiting success in the name of adolescent purity.

[King Rat]

I think it's entirely fair for liberals and progressives and people further to the left to be disappointed and/or annoyed by the choice of Biden; he strikes me as a choice who will have the effect of a standard issue running mate, though he gets there with outsized strengths and giant weaknesses rather than by being dull. He's not as conservative as Kaine or Bayh, so some immediate relief is perhaps in order, but conversely he's much more problematic from a left standpoint than other plausible choices would have been.

So disappointment, which is what I see here, strikes me as eminently fair. I haven't seen much spite in the name of adolescent purity, except in comment threads at other blogs. He's a safe pick, not a terrible pick, but not as exciting a pick as could be imagined. Much like the campaign that picked him, if the post-primary period is anything to go by. That's still infinitely better than the current situation or the alternative, but it's still true.

[bicycle Hussein paladin]

Re Biden's not-so-progressive record, I think it's interesting that Obama justified the choice of Biden by saying he was looking for someone who's inclined to disagree with him and see things differently. Obama is differentiating himself from Biden's political brand even as he brings him into the discussion. Assuming Obama really does intend to be faithful to his own, different, political brand, the question is whether Biden won't make it too hard for him to do this. That seems to be Obama's signature strategy, keeping his cards close to his chest and giving everybody a seat at the table, so everyone comes away feeling like he agrees with them, but you don't know where he's really going.

Taking foreign policy as a test case, he apparently had at least one PNAC signer working for him (this is according to said PNAC signer, I don't know if it was ever confirmed that he was on Obama's team), and not long ago he made some very confused statements about stuff going on in Pakistan. Specifically, he said something about extremist training camps in the capital, Islamabad, when in fact this is extremely unlikely--jihadis' support is pretty much limited to the northwest. Obama also said something about the Pakistani military resting on its laurels re the Taliban, when in fact hundreds of Pakistani troops have died fighting them. The gaffes were reported by Juan Cole at Informed Comment www.juancole.com and Cole speculated where Obama was getting these ideas from. The PNAC signer issue came up at Group News Blog, iirc.

In the immortal words of TMBG, you can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding. I'm not aware of Obama having made any similar misstatements re Pakistan or jihadists, so I guess the evidence on his ability to stay independent from any whackery or jackassity among his advisers is mixed, but not completely un-promising either.

[Shane Taylor]

[An old Krugman piece explains, Biden's vote was for debt-peonage:]

As Mr. Hacker and others have documented, over the past three decades the lives of ordinary Americans have become steadily less secure, and their chances of plunging from the middle class into acute poverty ever larger. Job stability has declined; spells of unemployment, when they happen, last longer; fewer workers receive health insurance from their employers; fewer workers have guaranteed pensions.

Some of these changes are the result of a changing economy. But the underlying economic trends have been reinforced by an ideologically driven effort to strip away the protections the government used to provide. For example, long-term unemployment has become much more common, but unemployment benefits expire sooner. Health insurance coverage is declining, but new initiatives like health savings accounts (introduced in the 2003 Medicare bill), rather than discouraging that trend, further undermine the incentives of employers to provide coverage.

Above all, of course, at a time when ever-fewer workers can count on pensions from their employers, the current administration wants to phase out Social Security.

The bankruptcy bill fits right into this picture. When everything else goes wrong, Americans can still get a measure of relief by filing for bankruptcy - and rising insecurity means that they are forced to do this more often than in the past. But Congress is now poised to make bankruptcy law harsher, too.

Warren Buffett recently made headlines by saying America is more likely to turn into a "sharecroppers' society" than an "ownership society." But I think the right term is a "debt peonage" society - after the system, prevalent in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for their creditors. The bankruptcy bill won't get us back to those bad old days all by itself, but it's a significant step in that direction.

And any senator who votes for the bill should be ashamed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/opinion/08krugman.html

[jonnybutter]

I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea of [Biden] on the ticket. Especially when there were a number of far more appealing prospects.

'Appealing' in which sense? Politically or ideologically? Assuming you mean 'both', who is far more appealing? Not Dodd, Clark, or especially Reed. You need a good campaigner, and none of them is great, although Dodd is OK.

Re: the Asshole Factor. I meet assholes 10 times worse than Biden every week. Yes, he's a blowhard, and he talks before he thinks (and the Bankruptcy bill is an absolute abomination, of course) but he's not a *major league* asshole. If you can't tell the difference between one of those and what Biden is, you don't get out much.

[jonnybutter]

a snippet from a post by Moira Whelan:

"But what has impressed me most, for years, is [Biden's] staff. He knows how to pick ‘em, and that’s no small thing. Brilliant people come and go in DC, but rarely do they also have the ability to pick quality staff the way Biden does. His folks always are among the brightest from a policy standpoint, but also possess a sophisticated political acumen. It’s a rare but valuable combination. I’ve had the privilege of working for, and with, many of these folks, and count them among my friends. I’ve always gotten the sense that their boss respected them for their abilities and listened to their ideas rather then them simply having to implement his. They were encouraged to push hard and dig deep on issues. They were challenged by Biden, but in a good way. The Boss reads, talks to experts, and asks questions. He challenges his staff and calls them to the carpet. Why? Because the most important thing is to get the answer right and to be honest about the challenges we face.

As Kathy G has noted, Obama is not the most progressive candidate to begin with (that would've been Edwards without the stupid affair), so I can't be disappointed/surprised very much at what he does. Biden is a good, practical choice.

(why doesn't typepad accept html? I tried to provide a link here, but...no. here it is as plain text: http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2008/08/biden-people.html

[jonnybutter]

..er...oh.

[MS]

OR ... you could consider that there are lots of good things to be said about Biden including the likelihood that he could get good things done in Congress since he is well respected and knows the ropes:

• Biden is considered one of the most liberal in the Senate
• has consistently supported the right to choose and he is a Catholic who doe not believe in abortion himself
• apologized for his support for the initial legislation authorizing war in Iraq and has loudly demanded U.S. withdrawl (including a contraversial plan to divide the country into three separate regional states that would be self-governing)
• has a son en route to Iraq in the reserves which gives him cred among the warriors
• has strong international credibility including being sent to Georgia by BUSH to try to negotiate during the most recent crisis
• isn't considered a DC 'insider', kept his family in Delaware and commuted 90 minutes daily to go home
• and he is considered an "attack dog" who knows McCain well, and will use that to go after McCain's weak points

I think he will do well as a support and counterpoint to Obama.

[choz]

Je crois avoir envoyé le commentaire suivant : le harcèlement aussi sur le web, réel, se fait quand on ne souhaite pas que les gens s'expriment, je ne connais aucune explication moins simple et moins évidente que celle-là. GROS CONNARD aka Merci-de-votre-commentaire-Il -a -été- bien -enregistré -et- sera- publié- prochainement -après- validation.(http://embruns.net/)

[a very public sociologist]

Viewing all this from afar Biden seems to be a sensible pick. He won't scare away conservatives too much. He has a certain gravitas that comes with being an insider, balancing Obama's cultivated image as an "outsider". And his class background might go down well with white working class voters who backed Bush last time.

All that said, does anyone ever vote for a candidate on the strength of his running mate?

[Hannah]

Are you OK? We miss you.

[Hannah]

Are you OK? We miss you.

[Joe Klein's conscience]

Was Kathy going to the convention? If she did, how come she didn't blog from it?

[swampcracker]

'm not exactly pleased by Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden ...

Then how do you feel about the Trilla from Wasilla? Hurray back. Can't wait for your impressions.

[playitsam]

I thought Biden was a very good pick. He may be something of a big mouth, but he's smart, very very smart. After the likes of Bush/Cheney, I'm ready for some smart. Biden was asked to go to Georgia by the President of that country. Says something for him.

[jonnybutter]

I hope KG is alright....the radio silence is making me nervous.

[Ryan Schallon]

Wherefore art thou, Kathy G? I'd just begun to really dig your blog.

[bcamarda]

Hope you're OK, too.

[BlackMage]

I hope you're OK, Kathy G; please, send some sign, because I'm already getting worried.

[james gyre]

i've been compiling a list of all the lies, dirt and insanities of john mcsame...

it's here:
http://thatveiledgazelle.blogspot.com/2008/09/john-mcshame.html

fuel for the fire, people. i'll keep adding to it as more accrues...

and yeah... biden's a bit boring, but i've come to trust obama's intuition fairly well.