Archive for Joe Biden

CNN Poll: No Biden Bounce

Posted by: Jason | August 25th, 2008 · 11:53 AM

While I suspect Obama camp’s numbers will rise throughout the week of their convention coverage, the first national poll out since Obama-Biden became official presents bad news for the candidate if he expected any type of VP bounce.

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) — It’s a dead heat in the race for the White House. The first national poll conducted entirely after Barack Obama publicly named Joe Biden as his running mate suggests that battle for the presidency between the Illinois senator and Republican rival John McCain is all tied up.

In a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Sunday night, 47 percent of those questioned are backing Obama with an equal amount supporting the Arizona senator.

“This looks like a step backward for Obama, who had a 51 to 44 percent advantage last month,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

“Even last week, just before his choice of Joe Biden as his running mate became known, most polls tended to show Obama with a single-digit advantage over McCain,” adds Holland.

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Joe Biden, (D) Scranton, PA

Posted by: Jason | August 24th, 2008 · 12:16 PM

Republicans certainly have their talking points, but no one works a tagline like the Democrats work a tagline. And frankly, this new one’s exhausting me.

In watching the Sunday shows this morning, and mind you it’s only 10:30am right now, I’ve already heard the words “Scranton, PA”, or… “scrappy Irish kid from Scranton, PA”, about two dozen times in regard to the life of Senator Joe Biden. He’s apparently not from Delaware anymore.

This is confusing you see, because for as long as I’ve known my US Senator Joe Biden, and I’ve been alive for 32 years (all of which he’s been in office), I’ve known a guy who lived in the ultra-posh section of northern Delaware known as Greenville, just miles outside of Wilmington (and incredibly more upscale than my hometown of Hockessin just miles away).

Greenville’s the kind of place where your average vehicle is a Land Rover or a Jaguar, where your neighbor is more likely to have the last name duPont, not McMillan, and where the average house size is likely 20-times that of your average Scranton, PA home. In fact, couple all of John and Cindy McCain’s various condos together and… well, you get my point.

My dad was a long time representative with the Steelworkers Union, largely dealing with guys from Scranton, PA and the surrounding area. I’ve met many a man from this region, and I can tell you for sure, Joe Biden isn’t one of those guys. So I looked it up, and turns out, Joe Biden did live in Scranton, PA for some time. The trouble is, he hasn’t lived there since 1952. That’s when Dwight Eisenhower was running for president by the way.

I know… the point is politics. It’s not cool to say that Senator Joe Biden is a rich guy with a small compound of land in Greenville, DE (with multiple houses on it). It’s not cool, as Chris Matthews emphasized this morning on his partisan hack show, to suggest that Joe Biden is a “Washington insider”. Nah. After all guys… he commutes back home every night for crying out loud! Give him a break! He’s always been an agent of change. Yeah…

The real point here is that Barack Obama, the guy at the top of the ticket, knows your average Scranton, PA voter wouldn’t pull the lever for a Chicago street organizer if he put a gun to their heads (whether or not they’d be clinging to them at the time is debatable), and thus, needs some mythical Scranton, PA hometown hero to come and save the day.

Well, guys like Obama may think those folks are dumb enough yet, but he’ll soon find out you have to do more than hire some Washington career politician to go in and speak their language. They don’t relate to Harvard law review types, don’t eat spinach or arugala salads, don’t like when folks make fun of their religion and gun culture, and certainly don’t relate to the issues of inner-city Chicago politics.

Barack Obama, and his Democratic friends, will need more than a running mate who spent 10 years as a child there to understand that, and we’ll be here every step of the way to remind them of that.

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Five Choices: Who McCain Should Pick for VP

Posted by: Jason | · 12:57 AM

I came at the exercise of finding five suitable names John McCain could use in selecting his running mate, hoping to add some fresh faces to the list of, what I’ve seemed to think lately, are blatantly unacceptable choices floating around. For I believe there is still hope that John McCain might pick unconventionally.

As it stands, Barack Obama has just given John McCain the ability to create a “game-changing” moment in the presidential race. If we punt ourselves, as I believe Obama did in picking Senator Joe Biden to run with, we risk missing the chance to long-ball this one into the end zone for a touchdown.

With risk, there is sometimes reward, and thus, in my believing McCain’s newly found magic won’t last much longer, I think it wise for him to resist the temptation which comes from names like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Tom Ridge, three picks I view as potential disasters.

Keep in mind, a few of these names are suggestions only, and couldn’t possibly be equal in potential as compared to those at the top of the list. But for the sake of going beyond, what I view, as three potential home runs McCain could choose from, I believe all who fall on this shortlist would not only take the position, but actually help John McCain in some way.

They’re ranked in order of least helpful to most:

5. John Kasich, former US Congressman from Ohio:

John Kasich has been largely out of politics for the latter half of the Bush Administration, and is currently rumored as a potential candidate for Governor of Ohio in 2010. And while many will disagree with me on this pick, as congressmen are sometimes risky, I’ve always felt that John Kasich’s blue-collar conservatism would stack up well in the corridor of the nation which John McCain (and apparently Joe Biden if you heard his speech today) seeks to exploit this election cycle, the purple midwest. With the roots to speak to those working class voters from states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, John Kasich could serve McCain well through reinforcing, in a believable way, the negatives associated with Barack Obama’s Chicago brand. He also comes with economic knowhow from his experience doing government budgets, is remembered and liked by the base from his recent time at Fox News Channel, and could play an effective attack dog role by speaking the right language.

4. Rick Santorum, former US Senator from Pennsylvania:

I know… Santorum lost a hard fought senate re-election campaign to Bob Casey, Jr. in 2006, and failed politicians are often seen as bad for national tickets. But put a man as talented as Rick Santorum in any other state but PA (especially one more in tune with his conservatism), and he’s easily a third term senator right now, if not our presidential nominee. He’s young, great on the issues, social, military, and economic conservatives alike love him, has a grasp of foreign and domestic policy as the former #3 ranking GOP senator, and served his state of Pennsylvania (battleground one for John McCain this year) for 12-plus years. Unfortunately he doesn’t carry you PA, but unlike a Tom Ridge, he makes your opponent sweat a little while the rest of us don’t have to hold our pro-life noses. If our choice is between loosing PA with Rick, and loosing MN with Tim Pawlenty (a pipe dream that McCain shouldn’t believe), I’m taking the guy I like more, and that’s Santorum. Bottom line, I made this choice because I believe Rick Santorum could serve as a competent under liner for John McCain’s commitment to conservatism. Also like Kasich, he’d be an effective attack dog from a region of interest.

3. Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina:

Sanford’s stock has dropped lately, given the unifying fear conservatives have found over Barack Obama’s potential election, and the view among many that McCain has run a far more conservative campaign than expected. As a friend of mine recently put it, McCain is doing what Sanford doesn’t need to do anymore, speak our language. However, this newfound joy over John McCain shouldn’t erase the fact that Mark Sanford is vastly popular in his home state, a solid conservative who the right would grow to enjoy, who’s known as a reformer in the Republican Party (often at the expense of criticizing his own state Republican Party), and whose hatred of spending rivals that of McCain’s. He’s uber-likable (if you’ve ever heard him talk he’s cool and relaxed, always), looks presidential, and could go a long way in making the conservative base a bunch of happy campers. If anything, Mark Sanford is that safe governor compliment to John McCain’s Washington experience, who would make sense from the standpoint of governing later.

2. General David Patraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force:

Memorize four words if McCain makes this pick: This. race. is. over.

John McCain certainly doesn’t need any more foreign policy credentials, as a veteran of war and government service, but who gives a damn… this pick would seriously kick people’s asses! Imagine the press afforded to McCain camp when the news broke, as they’d warm up the act by telling stories of a general who won the Iraq War when all seemed lost, now coming home to serve his country in honor, to protect us here. The crowds would come for miles to watch him speak, to hear him one of the greatest military leaders of our time talking of American strength in the world, and of the peace that comes only with victory.

It’s not that Americans dislike war, it’s that we dislike loosing wars. Well meet the man who prevented us from loosing a major war. McCain/Patraeus, quite frankly, would breath a sense of confidence in people, and would be a hail mary with minimal risk, as it’d be hard to challenge this man on anything (see MoveOn.org if you don’t believe me) other than domestic inexperience. McCain/Patraeus. Man… that just plain rocks.

1. Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska:

Google “Sarah Palin”, and find me one picture that doesn’t intrigue you to fits of lengthy staring.

I had a hard time deciding how to arrange picks 1 and 2, for who could beat out General David Petraeus? But I settled on Gov. Sarah Palin as the more “doable” pick for John McCain.

McCain would be best suited with a governor to match his senate career, and she is one. McCain would be best served with a younger, fresher face; she’s in her late 40s and is a Washington outsider. McCain would be better served to pick up as many disgruntled Hillary voters as possible, and Palin’s demographic matches the Clinton supporter to a tee (in terms of sex and age).

Sarah Palin currently has an 86% approval rating, and I’m not sure anyone since George Washington has ever held levels that high (save George W. Bush post-9/11). Conservatives would love this woman, as she’s rock-solid on all the issues we care about from life to guns to spending. Blue collars would love her, as she comes from that set of roots (her husband runs dog-sledding races and worked manual labor at an oil rig). Likewise, a female running mate would break historical ground, as Obama camp is certainly gaining from his own historical breakthroughs. She’s also not that bad looking, if you haven’t noticed.

Geographically, why care to work a particular state, when McCain could work the greater nation of womanhood? And it just so happens that Gov. Sarah Palin is an expert on a little issue called oil production, having lead all Pacific governors this year in an interstate pipeline deal. Palin’s actually been to ANWR, and has met the majority of Alaskans who support drilling there. Top that Barack (and McCain for that matter). Finally, and this is important, Sarah Palin just screams fascination, and that’s the magic that leaders are made of.

The stars are aligned for you on this one Senator McCain. If you want to win this election, pick the Governor of Alaska as your running mate.

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My Thoughts on Joe, Part Deux

Posted by: Jason | August 23rd, 2008 · 9:25 PM

OK… Enough with the Mr. Nice Guy from Delaware routine. First, you’ll have to forgive me, but my initial reaction to the Biden selection, learned early this morning, was partially skewed by my having went to high school, and by my frequenting two favorite restaurants (Pizza by Elizabeths and Buckley’s Tavern), just blocks away from where Joe Biden lives. It’s a bit of… home-team-itis… if you will. That stops now.

Having thought about the pick throughout the day, I have a few more thoughts on the Biden selection, and I’ll catalog them here:

1. The pick was electorally stupid.

From the Republican perspective, folks… we got off light, real light. In fact, I’d go so far as to call this a foolish pick, and here’s why.

Barack Obama needed to worry about two states in this election. Baring some unforeseen gaffe on the part of either candidate that sends the election into a tailspin, polling suggests the experienced senator should win so-called “swing states” like Florida, Ohio, Missouri, which were all carried by President Bush, should easily (if Obama’s pulling money out is any indicator) carry once thought to be pipe-dream red targets of Obama’s such as Montana, the Dakotas, North Carolina, and Georgia, and that we should look to a gripping battle in the only two former red states which pose a reasonable chance for Obama to win this, Colorado and Virginia. Joe Biden delivers neither.

2. There were better selections.

In light of the Colorado/Virginia reality, there were far better choices Obama could have made. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico was one of two potential selections I feared the most (I’ll reveal this now), as it would have guaranteed New Mexico and Nevada (though those states are trending blue anyway), and could have given Obama a more reasonable chance at shoring up Colorado through the voice of a neighboring governor and a Hispanic who speaks to their fastest growing population. Coloradans don’t speak the language of Wilmington, and it’s very possible Barack Obama just gambled away a state he desperately needed to win.

Likewise, Virginia is now in serious play for McCain again. We’ve thought, for some time, that Senator Jim Webb (the other candidate, save Mark Warner) would be the best possible choice for Obama to have made. Smart, a former head of the Navy, with conservative credentials from a swing state, and a non-Washington reformer, Webb would have delivered Obama the election by delivering Virginia. But as we know, Webb took himself out of the running suddenly last month. What did Jim Webb and his Virginia colleague Mark Warner know, that caused them to jump out against joining the Obama ticket so early?

3. A “decades” long senator as a running mate instantly wipes out Obama’s credibility on being the “change candidate”.

Before today, Barack Obama’s entire mysticism was centered around his, almost extreme, outside-of-Washington credentials. He was the young man, barely into the national scene, who was going to take a completely fresh perspective on his time in office. With Joe Biden by his side, “challenging his thoughts”, Barack Obama has just conceded the change message in favor of ultra-establishment of the worst kind. There were plenty of experience picks (say… Gov. Bill Richardson again), who could have given Obama the gravitas, but with a unique state-level perspective, with the added bonus of delivering a particular state. Biden is SO Washington, and it will come back to haunt Obama.

4. Joe Biden said some pretty bad things about his running mate in the primary.

There’s a difference between pointing out a disagreement, and downright saying someone’s “not ready”. Time and time again, Joe Biden has said while he believes Obama is talented, and serves as an up-and-coming Democratic star, he is not ready to serve as Commander In Chief. I have a sense that Biden, in the past, may have banked his cards on another candidate winning the nomination. McCain camp has already begun circulating a television commercial of Biden trashing Obama, and praising McCain, and I suspect this will go far to hurt him.

5. Picking for “what you lack” is not wise.

Picture Obama in a debate, and now picture John McCain turning towards him and suggesting he “was wrong on the surge, and quite frankly, doesn’t understand foreign policy”. What will he say? “Well… Joe Biden will help me”? The notion that you pick someone to help you with what you’re bad at, can only serve to underline that… you guessed it… you’re bad at something. Obama knows he’s in trouble vs McCain on foreign matters, and thus picked Joe Biden thinking it would clear up the matter just fine. He’s wrong, and he’ll soon realize this.

For those who compare this pick to George W. Bush’s selection of Dick Cheney, they miss the point and are misunderstanding history. Cheney was a selection to show conservatives that Bush was “one of them”. After months of Gary Bauer’s pro-life questioning, and rumors of a Bush/Ridge or Bush/Whitman ticket that frightened conservatives that they were nominating his father all over again, Bush, having the ability to run in the center by his positioning in the primary, selected Cheney to ease the fears of his base, not to shore up our fear of his lack of foreign expertise. We shouldn’t forget, George W. Bush was not inexperienced like Obama, and had ran the state of Texas as governor for 6 years, hardly the same as a guy from Illinois who’s only experience is that of an inner-city street organizer, a state senator, and an unaccomplished US Senator of 140 days.

Picking a candidate who shares your values, makes sense. Picking a candidate who delivers a state, makes sense. But picking a candidate because you suck at something, only highlights the blemish more.

Joe Biden will be an attack dog for Obama, and could score some political points from time to time on the stump, but does essentially nothing to help Obama win Virginia and Colorado, does nothing to shore up our fears that he’s not ready to lead our armed forces into battle, and does nothing but underscore that Barack Obama is, in fact, a typical politician that wants to win, not change America.

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My Thoughts On Joe

Posted by: Jason | · 12:16 PM

Conventional wisdom suggests that I should turn to my party’s talking points this morning and tell you all the reasons why Joe Biden was the worst pick in the world Barack Obama could have made for his running mate. But, in all honesty, I can’t do that.

I find myself excited to a certain extent this morning about Joe Biden’s spot on a national ticket. Not for any political endorsement, Biden’s positions being somewhere around the 92% disagreement rate with my own. Not for any personality endorsement, Biden certainly is a ham, to put it lightly, always basking in the glory of his own intellect at the expense of reality sometimes, and let’s face it… has the reputation of being a real jerk to the folks he disagrees with. Not for any belief that Biden was Obama’s best choice, for I could name a few others who may have helped him score a needed home run in places like Colorado and Virginia (I’ll get to that later in another post).

My excitement this morning comes on a more simple level. See… I’m a proud native son of the great state of Delaware, and I’m especially proud to see one of my own advance on the national stage today. Delaware, like other small states, yields an often insurmountable hurdle for its pool of talent, in that… let’s face it… it’s nearly impossible to make the case that Delaware matters electorally. Our gifted individuals often fall by the wayside, victim to the fast-track careers of politicians in places like California, Texas, New York, and others. To consider this, one should know that obtaining the status Joe Biden just obtained this morning, in his selection to be a potential future Vice President, is an accomplishment worthy of my celebrating, despite political affiliation.

While I strongly disagree with Joe Biden the majority of the time, for reasons of policy, or his ham-ish and often abrasive personality, or over countless other examples I could give, I can’t help but wish my old senator luck in his future travels, as I remember countless experiences and moments I’ve had with him throughout my life in Delaware. I’ll never spare Senator Biden the expense of pointing out when he’s wrong, or pointing out what I think is becoming clearer by the day, that the man topping his ticket is not ready to be president yet (as Biden has even stated himself), but as a fellow Delawarean, strictly, who loves his home state, I’m proud of Joe Biden’s accomplishment today.

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The Lonely Ranger

Posted by: Ion | September 25th, 2007 · 10:15 AM

(photo: Tom Harkin)

Joe Biden’s atrociously bad idea for partitioning Iraq is finally coming to the Senate floor this week:

The US Senate is preparing to vote this week on a non-binding resolution proposing Iraq partition which is seen by its sponsors as the solution to end violence striking the country. The plan was submitted by Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, a runner for US Presidency, who sees the proposal as the key to withdraw US troops from Iraq before slipping into chaos.

However, US President Georges W. Bush’s administration rejects the division of Iraq into different states upon sectarian distribution.
(Alsumaria)

For a refresher, here’s how congressional lone ranger foreign policy works: House/Senate says do this. The president says no. The End.

You would think after having been taught this lesson in such humiliating fashion over and over again since last year, the congress would have recognized the obvious fact that our constitutional system is expressly structured to prevent them from conducting foreign policy at all cost.

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Swapping Priorities: The Hypocrisy of the Darfur Issue

Posted by: Jason | June 5th, 2007 · 4:58 PM

(image: