If Hillary doesn't run, is Biden the default? (I hope so)
Hillary Clinton isn’t going to retire to life as a Chappequa grandma; she is all but certain to run for president. If Joe Biden is putting any serious thought to 2016, there is no point in him positioning himself as a progressive alternative to Clinton in the primaries. His best chance is to loiter as an heir apparent, ready to launch a campaign if health issues or some other, unforeseen circumstance compels Clinton to bow out. At that point, it is highly likely Biden would be able to dispatch Martin O’Malley or Brian Schweitzer, or Jim Webb, or Bernie Sanders, or any of the other peripheral figures who might decide to contest the primaries. There would be an inevitable grass-roots campaign to get Elizabeth Warren to run, but she has consistently ruled it out. In any case, many of her most ardent and influential supporters have reservations about the feasibility of such a campaign, and would prefer her to remain in the Senate.
“If Hillary comes out tomorrow and says, ‘I’m not running,’…I still think she shouldn’t run,” said one New York-based financial supporter of Warren. “She has so many holes in her resume.”
Added another California-based donor: “Two years ago she was a college professor, for goodness sakes. She has one issue and she is a great advocate for that one issue. She doesn’t have the breadth of experience necessary to be president.”
If Hillary drops out, with a significant health issue entirely plausible, Biden becomes, if not the automatic substitute, then certainly the fall-back for the 2016 Democratic nomination until a substitute is decided upon.
The arguments about his viability as a presidential contender are deeply familiar. His authenticity and commendable face-to-face campaigning abilities are let down by his notorious ill-discipline and tendency to go off track. His age is an issue.
Officially, there’s no maximum age for presidential candidates. The point at which someone is considered too old isn’t clearly defined.
The oldest presidential candidate thus far was Ronald Reagan, who was 73-and-a-half years old when he ran as the incumbent in 1984. The oldest non-incumbent to win a nomination was Bob Dole, who turned 73 a few weeks before the 1996 Republican convention. He’s followed closely by John McCain, who turned 72 a few days before the GOP nominated him in ’08.
Bob Dole is the most interesting comparison. Biden, who will turn 74 two weeks after the 2016 election, will be 73 during the campaign, only eight months older than Dole was in 1996.
One person can be nominated by his party and run for president, but another person’s candidacy is tacitly ruled out, because he is eight months older? Put like that, such a margin seems arbitrary and artificial.
Biden’s gaffes reinforce the age issue for him, because they are synonymous with the lapses of attention and fading mental acuity of advancing years.
Mitigating against this is the notion that Biden’s lapses, whilst exasperating, are almost invariably inconsequential. They never reveal Machiavellian cynicism, or hypocrisy, or scathing contempt for opponents or figures in the media, or backstabbing, or a schism between on-stage and off-stage personas.
The ‘Joe Bombs’ as they are called, are what I would term soft gaffes – Biden’s ‘Big fucking deal’ getting caught on mic was crass, but amounted to little more than an old-school politician ginning up his boss who was about to make remarks about the ACA. Telling the wheelchair-bound Chuck Graham to stand up was similarly clumsy, but inconsequential. A more important distinction to make is between dated, politically incorrect analogies and language, and Biden’s durably authentic character. Biden calls someone ‘The wisest man in the Orient’, and calls lenders of bad loans to people serving in the military ‘Shylocks,’ and whilst clumsy, no one would contend that, the latter for instance, was a genuinely anti-Semitic Freudian slip, a revelation of a subliminal ethnic and cultural contempt. Outdated racial terminology? – Yes. The merest hint of genuine bigotry in the remarks? – No. Similarly, when Biden spoke at the Democratic Women’s Leadership Forum, and clumsily and thoughtlessly praised the legislative involvement of former Sen. Bob Packwood, who resigned in 1995 after accusations of sexual harassment and assault, no one would actually suggest that Biden, the driving force behind the Violence Against Women Act, actually condones Bob Packwood’s misogyny.
The reason these little episodes get so much media traction is partly because there is a degree of humor about them – the pathos and irony of a sincere person guilelessly frustrating those he is sincerely trying to help.
One emphatic riposte to criticism of Biden’s discipline is his key role in the debates, during two presidential campaigns. Against Sarah Palin he performed suitably, with discipline and without any gaffes. He had good control of his material, had the presence of mind to avoid being seen as overbearing towards his female opponent, and won the debate handily. Against Paul Ryan four years later, he was once again disciplined, and righted the ship at a difficult time for the re-election campaign, after the president’s weak first debate performance. With nation-wide attention, during prime-time, when it counts, Joe Biden delivers.
Most importantly, his legislative involvement during the administration reveals him to be a disciplined and vital figure.
In December 2010, Biden’s advocacy within the White House for a middle ground, followed by his direct negotiations with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, were instrumental in producing the administration’s compromise tax package that revolved around a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts. Biden then took the lead in trying to sell the agreement to a reluctant Democratic caucus in Congress. In March 2011, Obama detailed Biden to lead negotiations between both houses of Congress and the White House in resolving federal spending levels for the rest of the year and avoid a government shutdown. By May 2011, a “Biden panel” with six congressional members was trying to reach a bipartisan deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling as part of an overall deficit reduction plan. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis developed over the next couple of months, but it was again Biden’s relationship with McConnell that proved to be a key factor in breaking the deadlock and finally bringing about a bipartisan deal to resolve the debt ceiling crisis, in the form of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Biden had spent the most time bargaining with Congress on the debt question of anyone in the administration, and one Republican staffer said, “Biden’s the only guy with real negotiating authority, and McConnell knows that his word is good. He was key to the deal.”
Dick Cheney is the most influential modern vice-president in terms of geo-politics and national security; but Biden’s negotiating and framing of significant legislation marks him as the most influential modern vice president in terms of the domestic, fiscal agenda. In an age of hyper-partisan gridlock, he has managed, through experience, connections and trustworthiness, to get significant things done. Isn’t that, ultimately, what people want from a president? Wouldn’t that be an attractive proposition in 2016, after the current legislative malaise and mood of distrust? To put it another way, the legislative deals he helped negotiate are a big fucking deal.
If he can tell that story, and establish that narrative, the public might start to tolerate the worst of his his ill-disciplined rhetoric, and be willing to give the old-school, hand-grasping, mouth-running, stick-up-for-the-working-stiff V.P a decent chance. FROM: http://sheppardpost.com/
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