Still Biden His Time

Almost exactly two years ago (??!!) I wrote a piece here complaining about Barack Obama's decision to make Senator Joe Biden his running mate. I argued that it was a safe, reassuring choice rather than one that carried any real political juice. A senior, well-respected senator; strong on foreign policy issues; no wacky skeletons in his closet., bringing with him ALL of Delaware's electoral votes.

Two years later, and 18 months into the Obama Administration, I want to reiterate my complaints. Biden may well provide the President with all sorts of useful advice on all sorts of matters. Indeed, from what I have read, his may be the sanest voice on Afghanistan, insisting that our best strategy is to neutralize Al Qaeda and, more or less, leave.

He has also served the useful function of being the butt of the jokes made by late-night TV hosts against the administration. People in the mainstream may still be a tad nervous about laughing at the President, but Biden provides as least one punch-line a week.

But for a long time now the office of Vice President has required another task as well: attack dog for the President. Spiro Agnew may have set the mold; Dick Cheney raised it to an apotheosis. Biden has avoided it.

The President is not supposed to engage in partisan bickering, nor is he supposed to score cheap political points. He is supposed to remain above the fray - at least publicly. The Vice President is supposed to be out there flogging the political opposition, rallying the base, and getting angry at all the things which demand anger. Biden hasn't done those things.

So for all of us who are baffled at the way the administration has allowed the message to spun by the rabid right-wing without offering any significant defense (to say nothing of an attack to put the Republican party on the defensive) I remind you: that isn't the President's job (and given all we know about this President, it simply isn't in his temperment). It's the job of the VP.

And Biden isn't rising to the challenge.

Biden His Time?!

So it's now official: The bumperstickers will read: Obama/Biden 2008. Count me among the deeply disappointed.

My objections aren't simply the obvious ones: he adds nothing to the electoral math (Delaware would probably gone Democratic anyway, and besides how many electoral college votes does it have anyway??!!); he is already the butt of late-night talk show jokes about his wind-bagginess; he comes from the Senate as does Obama. All of these would argue against choosing Biden.

But what this decision reveals, at least to my eyes, is that the Obama campaign, having scored a brilliant and stunning upset in the primaries, has decided to play things safe and timid in the general election. They have chosen a man with an impeccable resume, and the pundits will nod their collective heads about all the foreign policy expertise Biden will bring to the ticket. In other words, Obama has made the critical mistake of choosing substance over style.

While Biden makes perfect sense to those inside the proverbial Beltway, voters in Ohio and Michigan and Missouri won't give a hoot that Biden has served for so many years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They will see another East Coast, insider elitist.

My own preference would have been Wesley Clarke. Clarke was written off a few weeks ago because he said things about McBush's military experience which the press deemed out of bounds (though those comments were not, in fact, wrong). By choosing Clarke, however, or a reasonable facsimile, Obama would have thrown down the gauntlet, demostrating that he was willing to take a risk, and that the gloves were coming off over issues of foreign policy and security. And by having a general campaigning next to him, Obama would certainly pull in some of those white, blue-collar voters in Ohio.

On the op-ed page of today's Times (Sat. Aug 23) Charles Blow has a short piece complaining that Obama has lost his momentum (and his lead in the polls) because he has gone professorial in the last few weeks. By picking another professor to run with him, Obama isn't going to get his momentum back.

As it has played out this summer, this presidential election begins to resemble 1988. Michael Dukakis surprised many by winning the nomination, and then proceeded to run a mind-bogglingly dumb fall campaign. I recall at the time that the head of the DNC said if the Democrats couldn't beat George Bush I, they didn't deserve to be in power. Twenty years later, this election is Obama's to lose. Biden is a choice that signals he is playing not to lose. As any sports fan will tell you, that isn't how you win.