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Sunday, January 13, 2019 1:20:09 AM
Biden’s Baggage Could Be a Heavy Lift in 2020
"Little idea. Was partial to a younger crowd earlier, but..."
By Ed Kilgore
Jan. 10, 2019
Joe Biden has been a fixture in Washington for going on half a century now.
Photo: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Former vice-president and senator Joe Biden has not yet decided .. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/will-joe-biden-run-for-president-in-2020.html .. whether to make a third bid for the presidency in 2020. But his relatively high standing in polls of Democrats, and his own conviction that he may be the only member of his party who can beat Donald Trump, are likely pulling him in that direction. The basic rationale .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/10/15/daily-202-joe-biden-appeals-to-working-class-whites-who-defected-to-trump-is-that-how-democrats-win-again/5bc396dc1b326b7c8a8d19a1/?utm_term=.89556c4f7445 .. for a Biden ’20 candidacy is that he can appeal to precisely those formerly Democratic voters Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016, either because of his exceptional appeal to white working-class men, or simply because he is, unlike Clinton, a man.
Wherever they stand on the question of America’s readiness for a woman as president, self-consciously progressive Democrats have issues .. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryancbrooks/joe-biden-president-campaign-progressive-groups .. with Biden over his longtime identification with the centrist wing of their party. There are a couple of flash points in his background that you hear often from those who think he exemplifies a party tradition that needs to be firmly repudiated: his clumsy and insensitive handling .. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/21/joe-biden-anita-hill-kavanaugh-833598 .. of the Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991, a memory rekindled this year by the similar confrontation between Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh; and his proud sponsorship of a 1994 crime bill .. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/us/politics/joe-bidens-role-in-90s-crime-law-could-haunt-any-presidential-bid.html .. that is now remembered as a key moment in the mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders and African-Americans generally. Both these grievances will be abundantly aired if Biden does move toward a candidacy.
But as Matt Yglesias argues .. https://www.vox.com/2019/1/10/18173132/joe-biden-hillary-clinton-2020 .. today, these two especially sore points about Biden’s record are just the tip of the iceberg. And ideological issues aside, Biden’s record makes him the “Hillary Clinton of 2020,” not the candidate who can succeed precisely where HRC failed.
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What brought Clinton down was public exposure not to her personality — which was sparkling enough to make her the most admired woman in America for 17 years straight .. https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/27/politics/michelle-obama-hillary-clinton-gallup-poll/index.html .. before losing the claim to Michelle Obama in 2018 — but extended public scrutiny of every detail of a decades-long career in public life. This, in turn, is the exact same problem Biden will inevitably face as a presidential candidate. Americans like outsiders and fresh faces, not veteran insiders who bear the scars of every political controversy of the past two generations.
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Yglesias notes a number of such controversies that may haunt Biden in 2020, beyond the two everyone talks about. There’s the Iraq War (which no other viable 2020 candidate supported), the 2005 bankruptcy bill (which brought .. http://rooseveltinstitute.org/how-elizabeth-warren-put-bankruptcy-progressive-map/ .. a Harvard professor named Elizabeth Warren into the national spotlight on the opposite side of the legislation), the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (now looked back upon as shameful by most Democrats), and even his “handsy” behavior .. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/02/9-times-joe-biden-whispered-in-womens-ears.html .. around women.
[...to end...]
...that’s the rub: Every examination of Biden’s life and record, positive or negative, will reinforce the public’s realization that he’s been in the highest levels of government for nearly a half-century. Aside from his advanced age and the risks that involves for his party, it’s not an enviable background in a country that doesn’t much trust career politicians. That could be the item of baggage among so many others than really drags down Joe Biden if he chooses to run for president.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/bidens-baggage-could-be-a-heavy-lift-in-2020.html
"Little idea. Was partial to a younger crowd earlier, but..."
By Ed Kilgore
Jan. 10, 2019
Joe Biden has been a fixture in Washington for going on half a century now.
Photo: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Former vice-president and senator Joe Biden has not yet decided .. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/will-joe-biden-run-for-president-in-2020.html .. whether to make a third bid for the presidency in 2020. But his relatively high standing in polls of Democrats, and his own conviction that he may be the only member of his party who can beat Donald Trump, are likely pulling him in that direction. The basic rationale .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/10/15/daily-202-joe-biden-appeals-to-working-class-whites-who-defected-to-trump-is-that-how-democrats-win-again/5bc396dc1b326b7c8a8d19a1/?utm_term=.89556c4f7445 .. for a Biden ’20 candidacy is that he can appeal to precisely those formerly Democratic voters Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016, either because of his exceptional appeal to white working-class men, or simply because he is, unlike Clinton, a man.
Wherever they stand on the question of America’s readiness for a woman as president, self-consciously progressive Democrats have issues .. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryancbrooks/joe-biden-president-campaign-progressive-groups .. with Biden over his longtime identification with the centrist wing of their party. There are a couple of flash points in his background that you hear often from those who think he exemplifies a party tradition that needs to be firmly repudiated: his clumsy and insensitive handling .. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/21/joe-biden-anita-hill-kavanaugh-833598 .. of the Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991, a memory rekindled this year by the similar confrontation between Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh; and his proud sponsorship of a 1994 crime bill .. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/us/politics/joe-bidens-role-in-90s-crime-law-could-haunt-any-presidential-bid.html .. that is now remembered as a key moment in the mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders and African-Americans generally. Both these grievances will be abundantly aired if Biden does move toward a candidacy.
But as Matt Yglesias argues .. https://www.vox.com/2019/1/10/18173132/joe-biden-hillary-clinton-2020 .. today, these two especially sore points about Biden’s record are just the tip of the iceberg. And ideological issues aside, Biden’s record makes him the “Hillary Clinton of 2020,” not the candidate who can succeed precisely where HRC failed.
-
What brought Clinton down was public exposure not to her personality — which was sparkling enough to make her the most admired woman in America for 17 years straight .. https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/27/politics/michelle-obama-hillary-clinton-gallup-poll/index.html .. before losing the claim to Michelle Obama in 2018 — but extended public scrutiny of every detail of a decades-long career in public life. This, in turn, is the exact same problem Biden will inevitably face as a presidential candidate. Americans like outsiders and fresh faces, not veteran insiders who bear the scars of every political controversy of the past two generations.
-
Yglesias notes a number of such controversies that may haunt Biden in 2020, beyond the two everyone talks about. There’s the Iraq War (which no other viable 2020 candidate supported), the 2005 bankruptcy bill (which brought .. http://rooseveltinstitute.org/how-elizabeth-warren-put-bankruptcy-progressive-map/ .. a Harvard professor named Elizabeth Warren into the national spotlight on the opposite side of the legislation), the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (now looked back upon as shameful by most Democrats), and even his “handsy” behavior .. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/02/9-times-joe-biden-whispered-in-womens-ears.html .. around women.
[...to end...]
...that’s the rub: Every examination of Biden’s life and record, positive or negative, will reinforce the public’s realization that he’s been in the highest levels of government for nearly a half-century. Aside from his advanced age and the risks that involves for his party, it’s not an enviable background in a country that doesn’t much trust career politicians. That could be the item of baggage among so many others than really drags down Joe Biden if he chooses to run for president.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/bidens-baggage-could-be-a-heavy-lift-in-2020.html
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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