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Since this is the day we are moving the older Miss Pico to State College, I haven't the time to write a real post on the subject of Senator Biden's selection by Senator Obama to join him in losing in November. Therefore, I've simply moved up this post and its comments from the nineteenth.
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Our good friends at the Delaware Liberal have been all over the story that Barack Hussein Obama would pick Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) as his running mate.
No, that’s not one link; those are eight separate links! I did say to our friends at DL:
- Serious question: While it’s obvious that Delawareans would think that Joe Biden was a great pick, do you really think that such a selection would really energize anybody outside the state?The most common reaction would be: safe, boring, vanilla, not a real drag on the ticket, but not much help either.
So, assuming it is Joe Biden, why Joe Biden? I doubt that Senator Obama is concerned about Delaware’s three electoral votes. Someone like the supposedly extremely short-listed Governor Tom Kaine of Virginia could help Mr Obama in a state that John McCain has to win to win the presidency.
One word: gravitas.
Our friends on the left tried to claim that Governor George W Bush of Texas lacked “gravitas,” lacked the seriousness to become president, during the 2000 election. Trouble is, Senator Obama has less less: four years in the Senate — two of which were spent campaigning for the presidency — and slightly less than eight years in the Illinois state senate. George Bush spent six years as the governor of Texas, a post with executive responsibilities, before he became our chief executive; Mr Obama has no executive experience at all.
So, perhaps Mr Obama feels he needs someone reassuring, sopmeone with gravitas, to balance a ticket heavy on hope but extremely light in accomplishment or exprience.
One other note. MSNBC’s Howard Fineman wrote that Mr Biden has “working-class roots.” Give me a break! Mr Biden went to high school at Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware. Archmere is an independent Roman Catholic high school in, but not under the control of, the Diocese of Wilmington. For the 2008-2009 school year, the tuition at Archmere is “$18,450, which includes library, athletics, yearbook and all regular school fees, including accident insurance,” but not books. Bus fees, for students who need that transportation, range from $2,500 to $3,000 a year.
When I lived in New Castle County, Delaware, my daughters attended Corpus Christi School, a K-8 academy, and it was a strain. My older daughter would have started Padua Academy the following fall, if we hadn’t moved, and in 2002, Padua would have cost us about $7,000 a year; Archmere at the time was around $12,000. Archmere has always been a toney school for the upper-crust, and is simply beyond the means of working-class families.
Mr Biden was graduated from Archmere in 1961, several years before the Wilmington and New Castle County public schools were virtually destroyed by the residents reaction to court-imposed forced busing. At least when I lived in New Castle County, everyone who could possibly send their children to private schools did so, because the public schools were such disasters; that destruction hadn’t occurred when Mr Biden was in high school.
In simpler terms, to send your children to private schools in New Castle County was not a near-necessity in the late 1950s/early 1960s, the way it is now. It was a luxury, a very expensive luxury, to send your kids to private schools, and to send a son to Archmere was about the biggest luxury of all.
So the notion that Mr Biden was some sort of “working class boy” who did himself proud is just bovine feces.
Art Downs asked our friends on DL whether Mr Biden, if he is Mr Obama’s running mate, would cover his bets by also running for re-election to the Senate, the way Lyndon Johnson did in 1960, Lloyd bentsen in 1988 and Joe Lieberman in 2000 did, in what Mr Downs called “Not exactly a gesture of confidence in the ticket.” 
Only the conservative posturing classes would look at it that way. Or should I say, only a posturing conservative (or someone looking to retire) would fail to cover his butt by running for his Senate seat.
A rather interesting response, given that the history of such is a history of such by Democrats, not Republicans. But Mr Biden could always tap his own son, Beau Biden, the elected-on-name-only state Attorney General to run for the Senate seat, to keep it in the family.
With those two EGOS, who would be president? Oh, Joe’s ghost writer, McKinnock.
Good ol’ Art has a way of askin’ the right questions when it comes to personal commitment. I would wager that Biden, (if he is the VP pick), would not give up his seat to gamble with an uncertain contest. Joe won’t throw out a career on an empty suit from Chicago. These next few weeks should be interesting to say the least.
Most politicians have a way of hedging their bets but there are alternatives. Holding on to a ‘government job’ is Job #1.
A Senator not at the end of his six year term can run for president or vice president without risking his job. There is nothing illegal about running for President or Vice President and the Senate at the same time but it is a sign of desperation.
LBJ did do in 1960 and Lieberman played the same game. However, in 1964, Goldwater played a more honorable game even though he could have easily retained his Senate seat.
The most honorable political move was made by Phil Gramm. While elected to the House as a Democrat, he ran afoul of the leadership for voting his conscience one time too many. He was punished and decided to change parties. Quite a few elected officials have changed parties but Gramm may have been unique in resigning his office before officially making the switch. He had to run for his old job in a special election in a district that was deemed to be Democrat. He won the election and was soon promoted to the Senate.
If Biden did get the nod, would he drop out of his Senate race and take LBJ as his role model?
But Biden’s so clean and articulate…
/obvious
Seriously, though, I like Biden. His life story can be what it is – the man has still forgotten more about foreign policy than most people in Washington will ever learn. And did you watch the Dem debates? He was easily the most entertaining part of all of them…
That’s the problem: he’s forgotten so much about foreign policy!
There are plenty of people who know a great deal about foreign policy I wouldn’t want having anything to do with foreign policy: Cyrus Vance and Madeline Albright would be examples. Just because they know a lot about foreign policy doesn’t mean that they’d put in place the right foreign policy.
Both the senior and junior Biden are superb campaigners but the skill set needed for governance are not those associated with winning an election.
Senator Biden has a well-polished image but what are his great accomplishments? He shares Obama’s enthusiasm for an increase in the tax burden on American citizens so we can shovel billions down third-world rat holes.
The son won an election for Attorney General against a brilliant prosecutor who sent a rich Democrat prosecutor to Death Row. The prosecutor was endorsed by newspapers that generally tilt towards Democrats but he was a lousy campaigner. Delaware prosecutors come under the Attorney General. In an ongoing scandal at the Delaware Psychiatric Center (where patients were being physically abused and robbed of their meager savings) Baby Biden seemed to be ineffective. He stood by as records were being shredded on a mass basis.
It tells you a lot about Obama when you look at the names floated for V.P. George W. Bush picked a V.P. who had lots of top-level experience and had served in multiple administrations. Biden is a hack who lost spectacularly in 2 presidential bids. To be honest, the only thing I remembered about Biden when I first heard his name was how he was a plagiarist. What does that say about him?
If Obama were really confident in his ability to lead, he’d pick a candidate like Bill Richardson who at least has some executive experience.
BO can’t pick someone more aggressive than him, nor can he pick inexperience. An aggresive VP would show his glaring shortcomings, and an inexperienced one would show his glaring shortcomings. Either way, BO is between a rock and a ….. good deal for Mac.
And it seems that the great Michael Moore, worrying about a relatively inexperienced Barack Obama as his nominee, wants Senator Obama to nominate Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg as his running mate!
Of course, he thinks the ticket would be “Obama-Kennedy,” when her last name is Schlossberg; maybe he doesn’t think “Obama-Schlossberg” would have quite the same celebrity effect.
Of course, he thinks the ticket would be “Obama-Kennedy,” when her last name is Schlossberg; maybe he doesn’t think “Obama-Schlossberg” would have quite the same celebrity effect.
Try these initials BO-CKS.
Sharon,
I really wanted to like Gov. Richardson. He has an impressive resume. But the debates convinced me I don’t want him as President or vice-President; he simply wouldn’t be up to the part of the job which requires him to speak in public on occasion.
Actually, Governor Richardson was the one I thought Senator Obama would pick.. He’s Hispanic, which would help bring in the Hispanic vote, he’s a governor, and therefore has both executive experience and “outside Washington” experience, and he was Bill Clinton’s trade representative, so he has diplomatic experience to boot.
Mr Richardson was the “résumé” candidate for the Democrats in 2008, but it seems as though the voters weren’t looking for experience.
Of course, I also thought that Mr Richardson would have been the least objectionable Democrat running to actually become president, so I guess that would have doomed him!
The Governor of Virginia is a nice blend of blandness and mediocrity who would not divert attention from the True Star. It may be hoped that he could bring Virginia’s electoral votes into the Obama column in November.
This might be the safest move. Not that it would be a winning one.
Now the ball’s in Senator McCain’s court. Despite all of the hype about Senator Obama’s choice, when he finally announced it, it was a dull, same old/same old choice. Senator Biden is a perfectly safe choice: respected but hardly great, almost surely not a liability, but no particularly special, additional reason to vote for Mr Obama.
Naturally, I’d like to see Senator McCain make a spectacular selection, someone who would bring additional reason to vote for him to the ticket, but I’d guess that his choice, too, will be vanilla. Vice Presidential selections are rarely earthshaking, and in only a few instances has the VP nomination led to an unexpected victory; perhaps John Kennedy’s selection of Lyndon Johnson did, but if so, it was due to Senator Johnson’s political machine connections.
Speculation will now fall on Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. She has proven to be an adroit campaigner, and has executive experience, but she was just elected in 2006; she’ll have less than two years as governor of Alaska come election day. Mrs Palin’s selection would be seen by our friends on the left as a blatant attempt to bring in those disaffected supporters of Hillary Clinton who were voting solely for her XX chromosomes — and that’s exactly what it would be. It didn’t work for Walter Mondale in 1984, but, then again, Mr Mondale never had a chance.
My guess is that Mr McCain will make the safe choice, and select former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Such would be the best choice for a vice president he could be expected to make, but another vanilla selection as a candidate.
At least Biden thinks BO is “clean and articulate”. BO picks his polar opposite.
Tuition at Archmere in 1959 was approximately $250 a year, I know this because I was a member of the class of ’64 and had a relative one year ahead of me who won a 4 year half tuition scholarship with a total value of $500. Yes it was a private school. Yes there were some students from very well-to-do families, but there were also a number of attendees from middle class working families in attendance as well.
Mr Zajano noted that tuition at Archmere Academy was approximately $250 a year in 1959. Mediam family income in 1959 was $5,417. For a “median” family, that was roughly 5% of total income.
Of course, in 1959, the public school system in Wilmington/New Castle County hadn’t been destroyed by the residents’ reaction to federally mandated forced busing, either; people could send their children to the public schools and not be worried about it.
I grew up near the PA/Delaware border and a number of
boys in our working class neighborhood went on scholarship
to Archmere. There were other fees involved but these families,
some of whom had 6 or more children, found a way to pay as it
was considered a tremendous honor. My own grandfather
only went to 2nd grade and all four of his children went to
Wilmington DE Catholic prep schools on scholarship. This family
was dirt poor.
I grew up near the PA/Delaware border and a number of
boys in our working class neighborhood went on scholarship
to Archmere Academy. There were other fees involved but these families, some of whom had 6 or more children, found a way to pay as it was considered a tremendous honor. My own grandfather only went to 2nd grade and all four of his children went to Wilmington DE Catholic prep schools on scholarship. This family was dirt poor. What were the details of Biden’s family?