Tag Archives: Joe Biden

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Don’t narrow the VP field, Joe Biden

I am getting a strange feeling in my gut that the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, Joe Biden, already might have a super-short list of individuals he will consider to run with him against Donald John Trump.

Biden, who served two terms as vice president during the Obama administration, laid down an important marker at the Sunday debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders. He said he would select a woman to run with him as vice president if the Democratic Party nominates him as president this summer.

There. He’s now committed. No turning back, Mr. Vice President.

But wait a second. Now comes some chatter that Biden is going to look only at the women who once ran against him for the 2020 party nomination. They are Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (who’s still in the race).

I want to implore the former VP to look as well far beyond that short list. The nation is full of women who, in Biden’s terms, could “serve as president today.” They serve in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, in statehouses all over the land. They are titans of business and industry. They are retired from public service, but still with plenty of ideas and energy to offer the nation.

Joe Biden already has limited his list of potential VP nominees by excluding men. I’m OK with that. I just don’t want him to limit the remaining still-vast field of potential running mates to just those who have shared debate stages with him in the current campaign.

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Bernie faces the final stop on his valiant journey … perhaps

You know by now that my political prediction habit has been set aside because of poor past performance.

So, when I offer a possible scenario playing out I usually cover my posterior by saying that “I won’t be surprised” if such-and-such happens.

With all of that laid out there for you, I want to offer a brief look ahead at what I think could happen in the next bit of time as four more states conduct Democratic Party presidential primary elections on Tuesday.

Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Arizona Democrats are voting for their party’s presidential nominee. Two main candidates are still standing: former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Sen. Bernie Sanders; a third pretender remains, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. It’s down to Joe and Bernie.

What could happen Tuesday? Let’s try this: Biden scores huge victories in all four states and collects about 300 (give or take) more delegates to the national nominating convention. He builds a gigantic delegate lead over Sanders. He slams the door shut on Sanders’ path to the nomination and tosses the key into the drink. What does Sanders do?

In my mind, Bernie needs to then call a halt to his campaign. It was a valiant effort but there’s no way on God’s good Earth he gets the nomination. He concedes to his “good friend Joe,” and then endorses his candidacy, vowing to make good on what he said Sunday night at the debate he and Biden staged, that he will work to “defeat the most corrupt president in modern U.S. history,” Donald John Trump.

Biden and Sanders share a common goal, to boot Trump out of the Oval Office. If Sen. Sanders is a man of his word, and I believe that’s the case, then he will realize that with no path forward, any effort to continue is futile.

Does he extract some concessions from Biden? Sure. That’s what politics is all about. Dare I call it seeking a quid pro quo? Sanders could offer to leave the race and throw his support behind the victor, but only if the other guy, Biden, buys into some of the more progressive planks in his platform.

Will any of this happen? I certainly hope it does. I hope the party unifies behind the winner of the fight, gathers its wits about it and then goes straight after the man who never should have been elected to the presidency.

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Men need not apply for Biden’s VP slot?

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Joseph R. Biden Jr. made some serious news Sunday night.

He did so with a clear, concise and deftly inserted pledge: He said he would name a woman to run with him if he wins the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

There. It’s done. The former vice president effectively eliminated by roughly half the number of candidates he might consider running with him.

That doesn’t mean he’s got a short list. Oh, no! It means only that he has made what sounded to me like an ironclad pledge to select a woman as his running mate. He also seemed to suggest that a woman who debated him on the 2020 primary stage would have an advantage in the selection process.

Whoa! Not so fast, Mr. Vice President.

The nation is chock full of women who could serve today as president. They are governors, former governors, former senators, former House members, in addition to current officeholders. The field is full. I do not want him to limit his choices, even though he’s done so with the remarkable pledge he made on that debate stage with Bernie Sanders.

So … Joe Biden has just made a big splash.

Wow!

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‘Yes!’ on presidential debates without audiences

I hereby endorse the notion that all joint appearances with presidential candidates occur without audiences.

Tonight we heard from former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. They went after each other at times with vigor and even a bit of annoyance at what the other guy was saying.

However, there was none of the cheering, jeering, hooting and hollering we hear too often from audiences. CNN, which played host to the debate, shunned the audience. The network moved the debate from Arizona to its New York studio; the change was made because of the coronavirus pandemic and the threat of potential exposure to audience members.

In the process, CNN has served the cause of serious discussion among presidential candidates. Biden and Sanders didn’t fire off applause lines … because there was no one in the room to applaud.

The debate focused on issues. How would they deal with the pandemic? How would they deal with climate change? How would they provide health care insurance for Americans? How would they govern? How do feel about autocratic governments around the world?

So there. No audience to distract us from the issues or to distract the candidates from the matters that should concern them.

Let’s have more of these kinds of political events.

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Here is the face of a kingmaker

Let me stipulate that I am going to offer an observation in this blog post with some trepidation, given the accusations that the current president seeks to govern like a monarch.

So, here goes …

The face you see in the accompanying picture is that of a man who should be pictured in the dictionary next to the term “kingmaker.”

He is U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat. How does he emerge as a kingmaker? Well, on the eve of the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential primary this month, he endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden’s bid for the presidency.

What was the result? Clyburn energized the African-American voters in his state; Biden rode that energy to a smashing victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders. What’s more the momentum that Biden gained from that victory — given that he had underperformed so miserably in the nation’s first four primary/caucus states — has propelled him from near political death to likely nomination to be the next president of the United States.

The former VP has parlayed Rep. Clyburn’s endorsement into arguably the most stunning political comeback any of us have ever witnessed.

I don’t know what Joe Biden has in mind with regard filling key posts should he be elected president this fall over Donald John Trump. My advice to a President-elect Biden would be this: Appoint James “The Kingmaker” Clyburn to any position he wants.

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Trump sets the table for a new low of campaign viciousness

We all had better get ready for an onslaught of innuendo that is likely to come from Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

Now that Joe Biden appears to be the Democratic Party presidential nominee in waiting, the Trump team appears to be getting set to launch a frontal assault on Biden’s mental health.

Never mind, of course, that Donald Trump himself is the king of gaffes, of lies, misstatements, prevarication. He seems set on focusing on some of the verbal blunders that the former vice president commits on occasion.

As Politico reports, Trump stood before some donors this past week in Florida and talked aloud about some of the mistakes Biden made. So, the battle may be joined.

Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has said Biden suffers from “dementia.” Fox News blowhards Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have raised similar issues on their TV shows. As for the Biden team, it needs to prepare carefully for how it intends to respond to the idiocy that flies out of Trump’s mouth as well as what comes from his surrogates.

Given that they have so little that is defensible with which they can work to persuade Americans to re-elect Trump, they’ll rely on ways to tear down their opponents. If that reminds you of what they did to Hillary Clinton in 2016, well, it should.

After offering up some examples of Biden’s alleged intellectual slippage, Biden told donors, “I would hope you not repeat that.”

Sure thing, Mr. President. They already have in defense of the most dangerous and ignorant president in our nation’s history.

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Debate to go on without crowd noise … good!

Here we go … former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders are going to debate each other on Sunday.

It will be a precursor to what is looking more and more as if Biden will finish Bernie off when the ballots are counted the following Tuesday. Biden will win big in many of the states that are having Democratic presidential primary elections.

Here, though, is a bit of good news for those of us who are interested in this upcoming debate. It will be staged without an audience of faithful supporters. Yes, it’ll be just Joe and Bernie answering questions in a quiet and empty room standing or sitting before a panel of journalists/moderators. The coronavirus pandemic has mandated this move, which I happen to applaud.

This is good news for yours truly. Why? Because I have stated before on this blog my distaste for cheering, whooping and hollering at these joint appearances. They serve to distract us all from the issues being discussed. The candidates too often prepare laugh/applause/cheering lines aimed only at eliciting the kind of responses that move public opinion polling needs in their direction.

Sanders today seem to turn the debate into a sort of open-book test by previewing the questions he intends to ask Biden. He made his first public statements this morning after the drubbing he suffered at Biden’s hands Tuesday night. Fine. Let the debate go forward.

I look forward to seeing and hearing the two major finalists for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Moreover, I look even more forward to hearing them without the crowd noise that has become associated with these events.

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Time to put the Democratic primary fight away

The chatter in the wake of Tuesday night’s stunning rebuke of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “revolution” is making it clear to me.

It’s likely time for Sen. Sanders to end this effort.

Why? You may count me as one American who wants to defeat Donald John Trump. So does Bernie. So does Joe Biden, to whom Sanders got hammered in four primary states, including the so-called “make or break” state of Michigan.

Biden cruised to a double-digit victory. What’s even more stunning is that Biden defeated Sanders in every one of Michigan’s counties. From inner city Wayne County to the Upper Peninsula of Gogebic County, they all went to Biden.

That result, if nothing else matters, ought to tell Sen. Sanders that his time has elapsed. It’s time for him to wrap it up, call it a campaign and then dedicate himself — alongside his “good friend Joe” — to defeating Donald Trump.

Yes, we have a debate coming up with Joe and Bernie. Just the two of ’em will share a stage. It might be that Sanders is hoping for a Biden blunder, that the former vice president will say something outrageous … as he is at times prone to do. My hope is that Joe Biden produces a studied, steady and sturdy debate performance to show he can withstand the pressure and turn back the adrenalin rush that at times clouds this veteran pol’s better instincts.

If he does that, and then blows Bernie out one more time, well … it’s over.

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It’s looking like it’s all over for Bernie

I sorta thought that if the networks called Michigan as a Joe Biden win in that state’s Democratic Party presidential primary the moment the polls closed that it would spell curtains for Bernie Sanders’ candidacy.

The networks waited a while, but they called the state for the former vice president.

Hmm. It still seems to be the death knell for Sen. Sanders and his revolution/movement. Why? Well, the hill only get steeper for Bernie if he intends to capture more convention delegates than Joe.

Florida is coming up, along with Georgia. Biden will sweep Bernie in those two states. New York isn’t looking good for Sanders. Arizona well could go for Biden.

It doesn’t get any easier for Sanders to overtake Biden.

So the Vermont independent senator has to ponder the obvious: Is it worth the time, the effort and the money it will take to collect enough delegates to make a serious difference?

Sanders will fight for concessions in the Democratic Party platform, as if such things actually matter when the nominees trudge off to do battle with the other party’s candidate for president.

It’s looking to me and to many others that this nomination belongs to Biden. The two men will face off Sunday in a debate. Just the two of them will argue with each other.

Yes, I’m all in for Biden. I want him to be the Democratic Party presidential nominee. If he holds himself together in that joint appearance with Sanders and then buries him in the next round of primaries, well, then it’s time to turn out the lights.

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Called out on a call for a return to ‘normalcy’

I have been called out by someone I do not know, but who has read a blog I posted recently.

In the blog item, I called for a return of a more “normal” presidency and I posited that Joe Biden is the man to bring it.

This individual challenged my thesis. He said: Is there something other than normalcy you would fight for? Is this the natural ending for most people politically at a certain age?

“Fight for?” I’ll just provide this addendum regarding what I published on High Plains Blogger.

  • I support the former vice president’s view that we need only to improve the Affordable Care Act, that we don’t need to toss it aside and create a totally government-run health care plan. Biden isn’t willing to provide a Medicare for All health plan being pitched by Bernie Sanders and others on the far left wing of the Democratic Party. I have said all along that the ACA isn’t perfect and that Barack Obama — the ACA’s daddy — has declared that he would be open to improving it where needed.

That’s one issue.

  • I also want the president to be a reliable ally around the world. I want him to cease scolding our friends and allies in public, demanding out loud that they pay more for the defense we provide. I am convinced that Joe Biden will exercise discretion when talking to — and about — our allies abroad.

That’s another point.

  • I want a president who will take on the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights fanatics. I have believed for years there are ways to legislate reasonable control on firearms without abridging our Second Amendment rights that guarantee we can “keep and bear arms.” I also believe — if he stays true to his pledge to “take on the NRA” — that Joe Biden can work with Congress to search for legislative remedies to the spasm of gun violence that has become one of our nation’s most hideous scourges.

That’s No. 3.

  • Finally, I want a president who buys into the science that tells us that our climate is changing and that it is threatening our planet, the creatures that inhabit it — including we human beings — and that we have a responsibility to deal with this existential threat to Earth’s survival. No more “hoax” pronouncements. Joe Biden has made a vow to attack climate change head on.

There. That’s just a start. Thanks to the reader who called me out.