May 1, 2004
ELMER GANTRY AFTER BRAIN SURGERY:
Biden for Vice President (Robert Novak, May 1, 2004, Townhall)
Influential Democrats are urging Sen. John Kerry to consider Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the party's principal voice on foreign policy, as his choice for vice president.
Picking the 61-year-old Biden would be reminiscent of George W. Bush's selection in 2000 of Dick Cheney, then 59. Biden, like Cheney, would be chosen for his qualifications to succeed to the presidency rather than for influencing electoral votes of a large swing state. As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's top Democrat, he supported military action against Iraq and is less critical of President Bush than Kerry has been.
When Bob Dole was the GOP nominee in 1996, Richard Ben Cramer's publisher extracted the material on him from the great campaign book, What it Takes, and published it separately. In one of the more striking moments of that campaign, Tim Russert had Mr. Cramer on Meet the Press with David Maraniss, who'd written the best biography of Bill Clinton, First in His Class, to discuss the men they'd written about. At the end of the interview he asked Cramer : Is there anything about Bob Dole that you wish the voters knew, but don't? Something roughly like the following exchange occurred:
Cramer : Yes, that he is much nicer, funnier, more decent man than they perceive him to be. Unlike the caricature that comes across on television, Bob Dole genuinely cares about people.Russert : Same question to you David Maraniss, about Bill Clinton.
Maraniss : Yes, that he's a much less decent man than they perceive him to be. Unlike the persona he presents on TV, Bill Clinton does not particularly care for other people ; he cares about himself.
If you've read Mr. Cramer's book you'll be aware that while he found Mr. Biden very entertaining he also portrayed him as very much a rogue and an operator, for whom the lies about his past academic performance were typical. He's a high risk choice with almost no upside. It's conceivable that naming him would help Mr. Kerry hold DE, but at that point you've conceded the election anyway. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 1, 2004 8:09 AM
I will pray day and night, to any deity (even Gaia), for thhis to happen.
Posted by: MG at May 1, 2004 9:00 AMAllow me to start off some ammo.
Biden gave a very well received foriegn policy speech about a year ago, certainly well received by antiBushes.
It was very well spoken, but it's gist caused my once high opinion of Biden to plummet. In essence, he said the war was understandable and justified, but that Bush blew it with his relentless "rush" to it. If only he had been more methodical over the spring and summer of 2003, we all would have rolled into Bhagdad hand in hand in the fall, or some such.
Well, I though this patently idiotic on it's surface. That was long before I found out the extent of the bribery of French, Russian, and UN officials. And that was long before Bob Woodward filled me in on the extent of the CIA assets in country that had essentially put their lives on the line over a promise that, "No, we will NOT leave you hanging with your asses flapping in the breeze, and your families at risk of death by torure....we will not leave you out there.... AGAIN...". Similar statements also made to Saudis who we now know to have been much more integral to the war than we realized.
This is all new info. We already knew the psycholgical insanity of expecting governments and people, who felt stronger every day in oppostion to us, all of a sudden in the summer of '03 having an extraordinary change of heart to take the exact opposite course of all they had struggled for for a year. We already knew the military ramifications of 200,000 US troops in the frying pan for another six months, while Saddam prepared military and fought diplomatically.
So Mr. Biden... care to respond to any of this? Just one question. I think it was a dinner engagement...
Were you drunk?
Posted by: Andrew X at May 1, 2004 9:10 AMBiden is a mystery to me. From everything I've read about him and all the times I've seen him in action (mostly judiciary committee hearings, where it's clear he has no understanding of the issues he's ranting about), I'm convinced he's a dolt. But routinely people I respect talk wistfully about why can't the Democrats nominate a smart, rational, moderate guy like Biden. I just don't get it.
Posted by: David Cohen at May 1, 2004 9:12 AMBiden's kind of like "Lieberman heavy" in that he doesn't always toe the party line, but when he does is more strident in his comments than the 2000 VP nominee ever was. Still, Biden has the Neil Kinnock plagerism thing to live down, and given Kerry's problems with the truth over the past two months, I don't know if he really needs a running mate who would only serve to accentuate that problem.
Posted by: John at May 1, 2004 10:07 AMNot going to happen. Why? How many electoral votes does Del. have?
Gore, er I mean Kerry, doesn't need Del. or any of the NE to win. He needs to win some Southern and Mountain States and Ohio.
Posted by: AML at May 1, 2004 11:17 AMTwo Senators on the ticket? Have the Democrats gone insane?
Posted by: jd watson at May 1, 2004 11:54 AMJD -- I thought about that, and then I realized that, given that JFK I did it, that makes it more appealing to JFK II.
Posted by: David Cohen at May 1, 2004 12:06 PMNot going to happen. Why? How many electoral votes does Del. have?
On the other hand, how many did Cheney's Wyoming have?
To even suggest that Biden is a Democrat version of Cheney is silly. Biden is a lightweight and lots of people know that he is a lightweight. His Neil Kinnock speech aside, he was/is on the Senate Judiciary Committee and has shown little understanding of the Constitution through the years.
I once worked for a law school in DE and the senator occassionally taught an advanced con law class. One of the students whom I was friendly with took the class and the senator would always blovate how he singlehandedly stood up to Reagan and prevent him from destroying the constitution. He has little guy syndrome.
In addition, he has hair plugs. So between the Biden's hair plugs and Kerry's botox, they are going to have the cosmetic surgery lobby voting for them.
Posted by: pchuck at May 1, 2004 12:07 PMAt some point in the far distant past (I am getting old) Biden floated to the surface for a while attracted to much attention and got really embaraced about something, but I do not rmember what it was.
Any help out there?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 3, 2004 1:42 AMRobert:
He lied about his academic record at Syracuse Law School then got busted borrowing a huge chunk of a Neil Kinnock speech.
Posted by: oj at May 3, 2004 8:11 AMOJ What was the context?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 3, 2004 11:03 PM