Tag Archives: moon shot

Joe Biden for VP … one more time?

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I’ll admit this isn’t an original thought.

Others have said it, so I’m just joining anĀ “amen!” chorus of sorts.

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that limits the president to two elected terms in office is silent on the vice presidency. The words “vice president” or “vice presidency” aren’t mentioned in the amendment, which was ratified in 1951 after Congress approved it in 1947.

My point? Why not nominate the current vice president, Joseph Biden, to serve another four years in a Clinton administration?

Stop laughing for just a moment and ponder this thought.

President Obama put the vice president in charge of what’s been called a “moon shot” program aimed at finding a cure for cancer. Vice President Biden lost his beloved son, Beau, to brain cancer, a loss that many believe kept him from running for the presidency in 2016.

My thought then, when Obama made the proposal during his final State of the Union speech earlier this year, was this: Is there enough time for Biden to get anything accomplished before he leaves office in January 2017?

I find it hard to imagine how the government could achieve what the president said he wanted — a cancer cure — in such a short span of time.

All this talk about who Clinton should pick as her running mate has provided some interesting chatter across the country, along with the chatter about who Republican nominee Donald J. Trump should select as his running mate.

Clinton has a ready-made, battle-tested, house-broken vice president already on the job. He’s a bona fide foreign-policy expert and he still has a tremendous working relationship and personal friendship with many congressional Republicans who’ve battled Barack Obama over every step the president has sought to make during his two terms in office.

The vice presidentĀ also has a huge job that remains unfinished.

Why not, then, give him another four years to see this “moon shot” effort though?

Just a thought. I doubt seriously the Democratic nominee is going to heed this bit of advice.

But it’s out there, Mme. Secretary.