Barack Obama chooses Delaware Senator Joe Biden to be his VP
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 8/23/08 @ 11:54 am - Filed Under 2008 National Elections
As readers of this blog know I will not be voting for Barack Obama for President. I currently plan on voting for Libertarian Bob Barr for President since I cannot bring myself to vote for Obama or McCain.
That being said I am very surprised that Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate.
Barack’s entire campaign has been about “change.” He has successfully ran a campaign with its main premise being that Washington DC needs “change.”
That being said he has chosen a Vice Presidential candidate who represents the Washington DC establishment. Joe Biden has been a member of the US Senate since 1972.
Joe Biden’s personal background is one that seems typical for a US Senator:
He was born in 1942. Rather than serve in Viet-Nam he went to college as a traditional college student and became a trial lawyer.
He spent four years as a trial lawyer and has been a US Senator for the last 36 years…
I think Obama made a terrible choice.
That being said I think it is very possible that McCain will make an equally poor choice…
Mike Sylvester
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20 Responses to “Barack Obama chooses Delaware Senator Joe Biden to be his VP”
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Darn it, Mike, we are going to disagree :-)
Let’s look at Biden’s history: grew up in a working class family in Scranton, PA, widowed at a young age, raised his family while commuting from the Senate to his home in Delaware. (He never moved to DC). He has been a highly respected Senator - head of the Foreign Relations Committee, effective on crime (author of the Biden Crime Bill which put 100,000 police on the streets and significantly reduced crime in the 1990’s). His career is one of leadership and compassion in addressing problems. He’s an American success story, not a person born to (or married into) privilege.
In addition to his own qualifications, he complements Obama perfectly. He provides “white hair on the ticket” as I’ve heard some people say - a level of seasoning that some voters are looking for. For voters who like Obama’s message, vision and plan but are a little nervous to vote for a younger person, Biden is a great balance.
I think all of your points are valid and they are positives for Biden; however, Biden is one of the longest serving Senators, he supported invading Iraq, and his only experience in the private sector is four years as a trial lawyer…
Mike
“his only experience in the private sector is four years as a trial lawyer”
As opposed to Bob Barr, a lawyer who has worked for the CIA, the Reagan Adminstration, as well as elected positions in the U.S.(where he voted for the 2002 Iraq war resolution) and Georgia legislatures. He has also worked as a professor at a public university.
What is Mr. Barr’s experience in the private sector? I’m not aware of any, perhaps Mike Sylvester will enlighten me.
“He was born in 1942. Rather than serve in Viet-Nam he went to college”.
I was hoping we could go through one election without having the old Vietnam issue brought up. If my reckoning is right, Biden graduated from college in 1965, the first year official ground troops were sent to Vietnam. He was too old to be drafted when the draft was reinstated in 1969, and besides already had a child by then.
Trying to lay Vietnam guilt on Biden is a big stretch, considering how the Republicans got a free pass with how Quayle’s and George W’s daddy’s bought their way into cushy National Guard jobs during the peak of the Vietnam era.
Ms. Goldner,
The thing about the police surge is after a couple of years the funds ran out from the feds. The local taxpayers had to pick up the tab.
I like Joe Biden. He understands we are in a global economy. Also that National Security is about more than just the 4 corners of the United States.
Surely we all want change, yet this Obama-Biden ticket will test our U.S. Constitution at the Core.
I like Joe Biden. I would be generally okay with a Biden presidency. An absolutely horrible pick for Vice President.
(1) BO needed someone with experience but also could not pick some consumate Washington insider. He failed. Clinton-Gore, a good VP pick. Gore was young but also experienced. Despite what Jeff says, hard to argue change when your VP may as well be named Mr. Establishment.
(2) Related point: huge buzz kill. The BO candidacy has a lot of electricity and he did a good job of building up anticipation for the VP. I’m not voting for BO and I was a little excited, I have to admit. Then to find out its someone who is going on four decades in the Senate? Snooze-fest.
(3) No help in a battleground state. Not the be all, end all, but always nice when you can get it.
(4) Plagarism. It’s probably a moot issue by now in the State of Delaware. Expect it to be dredged up like Teddy Kennedy’s car.
(5) Support of Iraq. Obvious problem.
(6) Substantially more qualified than Obama. Clearly, if you would compare resumes, Biden should be President and Obama should be Vice President. Its an anamoly that may make people uncomfortable. Sometimes it works (Kennedy-Johnson) but sometimes it doesn’t (Dukakis-Bentson). There has probably never been a great qualification disparity in history.
(7) Safe candidate. BO has picked a safe VP which has its obvious upsides. However, if McCain picks an unconventional VP (please, God, let him pick Paldin) and people are excited, the McCain candidacy may seem the more electric. Biden casts an old and tired pall over BO’s entire campaign.
JQ - Biden’s police bill was always sold as a cost-share with local governments. It provided locals with an opportunity to hire more officers in the short term and gradually merge those salaries into regular city budgets. We do not have a national police force, so it would be inappropriate for the feds to pay for police over a long term. Fort Wayne budgeted for the phase-out of federal funds and it worked very well. The fact that other cities may not have been able to do that, or chose not to do it, does not condemn Biden’s program. And I am not willing to hold Senator Biden responsible for the disastrous mismanagement of the war in Iraq which can and should be laid solely at the feet of the Decider-in-Chief.
Keith, I disagree that candidates are or should be elected based on their resume. We want a President who can inspire us, who can lead, who can bring people together to solve problems. Experience matters, but electing a president isn’t like hiring an employee. Think about two of the best resume’d (not a word, sorry) presidents of the last 30 years: Carter and Bush I. How’d those work out for us?
Craig,
I agree with you that Bob Barr is not perfect. I am most likely going to vote for Bob Barr because I CANNOT vote for either OBama or McCain.
Mike
Tim,
I understand your comment; however, your math is wrong…
Biden was 18 in 1960. He had many opportunities to serve his country in the military and he passed.
I do not think you have to serve in the military to hold public office; however, as a military veteran I have to tell you that it is something that I always consider when I vote.
And as far as the draft goes I am in favor of the draft when there is a declared war. The way we did the draft during Viet-Nam was wrong. College deferments are WRONG.
Mike
Karens,
You wrote
“And I am not willing to hold Senator Biden responsible for the disastrous mismanagement of the war in Iraq which can and should be laid solely at the feet of the Decider-in-Chief.”
The Democratic Congress almost entirely supported invading Iraq.
We have had a Democratic majority in Congress since the 2006 election and they had the power and ability to change things in Iraq; however, they chose not to for political reasons.
I feel that the Democrats have a lot of blame for Iraq!
Mike Sylvester
I am not sure what City Council you are talking about but there was a great deal of debate on Fort Wayne City Council about this program. There was concern of even accepting the money to start with because it was going to become a UNFUNDED.
What it became was a property tax increase for local taxpayers when the money ran out from the FEDS.
Karen;
Generally speaking, I hold you in high regard. It’s not necessarily your policy positions that impress me so much as your style of doing business. I think that you are one of the more forthright and genuine members of local government. I also think that you are more likely than most to really listen and try to understand a point of view that differs from your own.
That being said, I wish to comment on your recent statement “We do not have a national police force, so it would be inappropriate for the feds to pay for police over a long term. Fort Wayne budgeted for the phase-out of federal funds and it worked very well.”
I think that you are wrong on both accounts. We have federally mandated laws, and I think it would be logical for them to be federally funded as well. Although this is not the way we currently do things, I think it certainly would be appropriate if we began to do so. And as far as the second part of this statement, and I mean this with all due respect, me thinks you speak from ignorance.
Mike,
I’ve pointed this out before but if the President wouldn’t have vetoed the legislation that passed Congress then we would basically be out of Iraq today.
President Bush and the filibustering Republicans are solely responsible for our continued presence there…
Jeff, I must take issue with you here. We’d have no continued presence in Iraq if we hadn’t invaded, and the Democratic Party was fully — I repeat, fully — complicit and on-board in that decision. The same goes for the so-called PATRIOT Acts, telecom immunity, etc.
The Congress (with its Democratic majority) can always defund the war, simply by not funding it. Bush can hardly veto the lack of an appropriation, can he? As far as that’s concerned, if he’d been impeached and removed from office, he wouldn’t be vetoing squat, would he?
We’re still there because there’s a large bipartisan majority that wants it that way … and that bipartisan majority is there because, deep in their black, flabby little hearts, the great A’murkan Peepul want it that way, too. We’ll reap waht we’ve sown, and there’ll be a lot of justice in the harvest.
I successfully avoided the draft by being born 4 years after the fall of Saigon.
There were only 2 Congressionally declared wars that involved a draft: World Wars I and II. Those were the only wars in which America fought against countries that were roughly equally powerful as the US. They were the last “symmetrical” wars; every war since has been waged against guerrillas or petty despots. There won’t be another symmetrical war as long as there are nuclear weapons. The draft became obsolete 63 years ago this month.
I don’t fault Joe Biden for not defending his country. He was only 3 the last time it needed to be defended; he was nearly 60 when the current crisis began.
Robert:
I wish someone had told the draft board in 1963. My letter said “You will report for a physical examination at ……..” !!!!
I was 18.
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In 1971 I entered college, but remained 1-A in my draft status. The draft board told me there were no more college deferments. Lucky Joe Biden I guess was excused since he was 18 during the Cold War and a few days older when America began sending advisors to Vietnam.
One thing that irritates me is when the military service of candidates who served in the Reserve and National Guard are demonized. I left my civilian life two more times to go overseas to serve. Yes, I was in the Reserve, that branch of the service that some consider less than draft dodging like Clinton and Biden did. So then in some peoples challenged intellects I really never served in those two other foreign conflicts because I was in the “Reserve”!