The Biden Antidote
Let’s talk about chaos.
Not Republican chaos, although one can never find enough
time to dwell in the lush garden of dysfunctionality that flourishes in the
Land of Big Hearts and Big Tents.
Democratic chaos. Time
to discuss Hillary Clinton, the clear (and possibly doomed) frontrunner for
their nomination. You can love Bernie
Sanders to death, or harbor a secret craving for those Men of the Mid-Atlantic
Webb and O’Malley, but when every nose has been counted, it’s her nomination.
So the eggs in the basket all have Hillary painted on the
side. But it’s a gigantic gamble,
because outside the Hillary-haters, and the Hillary acolytes, no modern
politician, short of perhaps Richard Nixon, produces such complex
feelings. Either enough of those
“conflicted” people will respect her toughness, think of her as able and
experienced, and choose her to be our next President. Or, they will look extra closely at every
imperfection (and there are many) and decide they just don’t want what she has
to offer—especially in the package she’s wrapped in.
Democrats have long assumed that Hillary, without Obama’s “ethnic”
problem, would reassemble Bill’s coalition and attract traditionally Democratic
but presently alienated blue-collar voters.
One of the things you heard frequently after the 2008 elections was Obama’s
convincing win would have been a landslide if Hillary were the nominee. I am not convinced of that—Obama 2008 was a
one-off, a candidate of a unique and fresh appeal, especially to younger
voters. The 2012 Obama, dogged by 4
years of the drudgery of governing, and the incessant vituperation coming from
his opponents, was far more prosaic. You
gave him another chance either because you were a partisan, or because you
thought he was dealt a tough hand and got a raw deal and deserved more time, or
because Mitt Romney didn’t set your heart aflutter. In 2008, Obama showed he could soar. In 2012, he demonstrated he could punch it
out, when needed.
And that’s the problem, because a tough slog might not work
for Hillary—the voters she might gain for being not-Obama might be well offset
by those she loses for being Hillary Clinton.
Look at the 2012 results, and you can see that in in the battleground
states where Obama assembled his winning coalition, he had several close
calls. Ohio, Virginia, and Florida, a
total of 60 Electoral Votes, were each decided by less than 3% in 2012. In Florida, the margin was less that 75,000
out of nearly 8.5 Million votes, more than easily flipped by a favorite son on
the ticket.
Absent some appalling collapse, I don’t think Hillary will
get her clocked cleaned—Democrats are already frantic about the idea of the GOP
running wild with control of the government in 2017, so they will do the best
they can. But there is the very distinct
possibility that 2016 could look a lot like 2004, with an unpopular George Bush
facing off against an unexciting John Kerry.
The problem for Democrats is that they don’t really know
where anything stands—they basically have lost their bearings as the party has
become captive to dominant personalities—and the vociferous and highly personal
nature of the political opposition. It’s become increasingly difficult to
distinguish between empirically good and bad policy, and even good and bad behavior.
With Obama, it’s become a tiresome dirge that is clearly
personal. The words are barely out of
his mouth before he’s denounced as a weak-yet-tyrannical secret Muslim bent on
destroying our way of life. Most Democrats,
no matter how much they might disagree with a particular Obama policy (the Iran
deal comes to mind) or even dislike the man himself (and there are more than a
few) just don’t buy that characterization.
But with Hillary, a far more complex web emerges. Talk to a Democrat and they roll their eyes
at Benghazi. Benghazi has become the
Stalinist Show Trials of our time. They
will go on and on, with no regard for proper procedure or the smallest
semblance of fairness, with continuous unflattering leaks, and a subpoena power
intended to intimidate and interfere with Hillary’s campaign. Democrats see Benghazi hearings like ACA-repeal
votes—blood for an insatiable vampire.
So, they will stay in there and fight for Hillary.
The charitable contributions and especially, the emails are
a different matter. Not just because
there might be illegality there (the GOP is already demanding indictments, the
FBI, and the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg) and not even because there’s likely some
embarrassing ones. But because of what
it may say about Hillary herself. The
private server and the big time contributors-influence peddlers reinforce the
peculiar poll results that show there a far greater number of people who think
that Hillary can do the job than those who actually trust her with the keys.
Democrats know that the next 15 months are going to be
non-stop Hillary bashing, coupled with taxpayer-financed continuous
investigations. If that were it, they
might just very well grit their teeth and duke it out. What worries many is that they don't trust
her that much either—they are hesitant to go to the mat in defending her—and
possibly going down flames themselves.
And, they worry she’s not all that good at being a politician—especially
since she’s been sandwiched between two of the marvels of the age, her husband
Bill, and Barack Obama.
Ugly little thoughts creep in the dead of night. Corrosive thoughts, thoughts of failure—or
thoughts of a 2016 summer surprise, with Hillary dropping out for “health
reasons.” Democrats know that if it goes
into next year, they have no back up whatsoever. It is a function of the weakness of the
Democratic bench that not only do they not have many politicians who can
electrify, but they don’t even have that many who can project an authoritative
competence.
And then there’s Joe Biden.
Pundits have pointed out that he’s everything that Hillary isn’t, but I
don’t think that’s completely fair—to Hillary or to Biden. If Biden gets into the race he is by far and
away the most experienced, and in many respects, the most qualified of any
candidate, Democratic or Republican. I am not making a policy point; I’m simply
stating facts. Biden has had an
uninterrupted record of public service for more than 40 years. He was first elected as a wunderkind in
1972. He chaired both the Senate Foreign
Relations and the Senate Judiciary Committee before playing a critical role in
the Obama White House He is deeply
steeped in the arcane knowledge of how government works, and even the
Republicans who mock him publicly for his gaffes rely on his exceptional gift
for working across the aisle to fashion reasonable compromises.
Biden also has led an extraordinary and extraordinarily
public life story, scarred by tragedy, which he has borne with exceptional
dignity. For all the caricature, he is a
superb retail politician who easily relates to a broad spectrum of the
electorate—he’s just a very hard guy to dislike.
So, Joe the antidote to what ails the Democrats? Even more expansively, is he the antidote to
what ails the nation? Would a President
Biden find ways to work with Republicans that Mr. Obama either couldn’t or
wouldn’t have been allowed to? Could
a one-term Biden Presidency (his camp, while not committing him, has conceded
to age by talking one term) do the very hard things that any other President,
who has to run for reelection from the day after his Inauguration, could not
do?
I honestly don’t know.
There are so many obstacles.
Biden himself has to decide to run, and he’s apparently deeply
conflicted, with many of his inner circle worried it could damage his
legacy. Biden would have to get the
nomination from Hillary, and that’s no mean feat, given her huge institutional
advantages. And Biden would have to
convince the electorate that, at 73, he’s really up to it.
Not going to be easy, especially because Biden has never
been good at campaigning for the top job.
There have always been folk who seemed more papabile than him. In 1988
he had to withdraw after plagiarism charges, in 2008 he was just outpaced by
the perceived frontrunner (Hillary) and the new star (Obama).
And yet, it’s somewhat tantalizing. Biden is a throwback to
an earlier age. He’s not shouting like
Trump, or barn burning like Sanders, or competing to be the absolute meanest
guy to immigrants or the one demanding that pregnant women wear body-cams.
Just an old pharmacist with a mortar and pestle who knows how to get you up on your feet and back on the road.
Biden-Kasich 2016?
Is that really more bizarre than The Donald selling Oval
Office-themed condos?
August 18, 2015
Michael Liss
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