Normally I save the nominee bashing for later, if ever. I’ve stayed notably silent except in general terms to say that Democrats need more Candidates that embrace positive change (because face it folks, things suck and standing around waiting to lose so they get worse is a pretty nihilistic strategy that only encourages depression and apathy) and not those who favor the Status Quo.
Joe Biden is the Status Quo. He must go.
Joe Biden Should Run, Just to Represent the Kind of Politics Democrats Must Abandon
By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
Jan 24, 2019
Now that it’s January of 2019, my self-imposed boycott of news concerning the 2020 presidential election regrettably has been lifted. As far as I’m concerned, I hope all 22 Democrats who have evinced an interest in running decide to do so. And that includes former Vice President Joe Biden, who I wish, for the love of god, would shut the hell up and let the field come together.
Biden simply cannot be the Democratic nominee for president. Not in this Democratic Party and not after those midterms, he can’t. I don’t hold with the fashionable performance-lefty revisionism regarding the Obama administration but, given the events of the last two years, the Obama Administration seems as distant in the past as the Seleucid Empire. Biden is a nostalgia candidate. He’s also a terrible one.
I take exception to that “performance-lefty” crack. Obama was a terrible President, basically a Conservative Republican in ‘D’ clothing, and I haven’t changed my mind about it since the 2008 Transition with his picks for Inauguration Speakers and Cabinet Members. I could cite hundreds if not thousands of examples where he betrayed any Left hopes. Nothing “performance” about my disdain Chuckles.
The first time he ran for president was 31 years ago. He cratered behind Michael Dukakis, for pity’s sake, because he couldn’t keep Neil Kinnock’s words out of his speeches. Then, he demolished a lot of his credibility on women’s issues by presiding over the catastrophic Anita Hill hearings. (He got some of it back by shepherding the Violence Against Women Act through to presidential signature in 1994, but, you watch, the Hill hearings still sting.) In 2008, he finished fifth in Iowa and never made it to Valentine’s Day. Those disasters, however, will pale against what will happen to him if he tries his mojo against the current Democratic primary electorate.
He’s already in trouble. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported on a paid speech Biden had given in Michigan last November in which he appeared to be flattering local Republican congresscritter Fred Upton, a Republican in a tough re-election fight. Biden also declined to endorse Upton’s Democratic opponent, Matt Longjohn. Upton won by less than five percent of the vote.
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This episode was bad enough, but Biden literally hand-waved the reaction to it, albeit in a very religious way.
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Yeah, that’ll work during a manufactured government shutdown in which people are afraid to fly.Later in that same speech, Biden told the National Conference of Mayors that his bipartisan bona fides are one way out of our gridlocked system. How he plans to cure the prion disease afflicting the other party went unmentioned, but Biden insisted that part of the remedy is banality.
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But there is a madman at the wheel, and the Republican half of the government has spliced hands on the proposition that they will follow him around the horn, around the Norway maelstrom, and around perdition’s flames before they give him up. (Thanks, Herman!). That really isn’t what the country needs right now, Joe. Still, though, I hope he runs. If the Democratic Party really wants to leave the old DLC and the Obama days behind, someone should be in the race to represent that legacy, too, for good and ill. At the very least, having Joe Biden and Senator Professor Warren on stage, talking about Biden’s credit-card friendly 2005 bankruptcy bill, would be entertaining as all hell.
Talk about barely a Democrat!
Joe Biden’s Paid Speech Buoyed the G.O.P. in Midwest Battleground
By Alexander Burns, The New York Times
Jan. 23, 2019
Joseph R. Biden Jr. swept into Benton Harbor, Mich., three weeks before the November elections, in the midst of his quest to reclaim the Midwest for Democrats. He took the stage at Lake Michigan College as Representative Fred Upton, a long-serving Republican from the area, faced the toughest race of his career.
But Mr. Biden was not there to denounce Mr. Upton. Instead, he was collecting $200,000 from the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan to address a Republican-leaning audience, according to a speaking contract obtained by The New York Times and interviews with organizers. The group, a business-minded civic organization, is supported in part by an Upton family foundation.
Mr. Biden stunned Democrats and elated Republicans by praising Mr. Upton while the lawmaker looked on from the audience. Alluding to Mr. Upton’s support for a landmark medical-research law, Mr. Biden called him a champion in the fight against cancer — and “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with.”
Mr. Biden’s remarks, coming amid a wide-ranging discourse on American politics, quickly appeared in Republican advertising. The local Democratic Party pleaded with Mr. Biden to repair what it saw as a damaging error, to no avail. On Nov. 6, Mr. Upton defeated his Democratic challenger by four and a half percentage points.
As Mr. Biden considers a bid for the presidency in 2020, the episode underscores his potential vulnerabilities in a fight for the Democratic nomination and raises questions about his judgment as a party leader. Mr. Biden has attempted to strike a balance since leaving office, presenting himself as a unifying statesman who could unseat President Trump while also working to amass a modest fortune of several million dollars.
But Mr. Biden’s appearance in Michigan plainly set his lucrative personal activities at odds with what some Democrats saw as his duty to the party, linking him with a civic group seen as tilting to the right and undermining Democrats’ effort to defeat Mr. Upton, a powerful lawmaker who in 2017 helped craft a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Eric Lester, a retired physician who chaired the Democratic Party in Berrien County, Mich., during the midterms, said he viewed Mr. Biden’s supportive remarks about Mr. Upton as a betrayal. Mr. Lester, who attended the speech, said he had confronted an aide to Mr. Biden in the hallway, telling him the former vice president had badly damaged the Democratic cause.
“It just gives Fred Upton cover and makes it possible for him to continue to pretend to be a useful, bipartisan fellow,” Mr. Lester recalled saying, adding, “I entered the hall with positive feelings about Mr. Biden and felt very frustrated.”
Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist and veteran of several presidential campaigns, said it was an open question whether voters in the party would punish candidates they see as overly friendly or cooperative with Republicans. He suggested that could be one of the defining pressures for Mr. Biden if he announces his candidacy.
“I really believe the country does not want to be at war with each other,” Mr. Trippi said. “But there is also the polarization going on, where people say: Damn it, I want to fight.”
Kick ’em in the ‘Nads. When they’re down on the ground writhing in pain? Kick ’em in the ‘Nads again.
Oh, there’s many more terrible things in that piece, you should take a look. I was going to talk about it anyway, but then this came out-
Biden on criticism of his praise for GOP lawmaker: ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned’
By REBECCA MORIN, Politico
01/24/2019
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is weighing a 2020 presidential run, rejected criticism that he is too close with Republican lawmakers, telling a gathering of U.S. mayors in Washington that nothing can get done “unless we start talking to one another again.”
The criticism of Biden stems from a New York Times report published earlier this week detailing remarks he made in the run-up to last year’s midterms praising Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) as “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with.” Upton, facing a stiff challenge from a Democratic challenger, won his race by 4.5 percentage points.
Biden’s words, which quickly surfaced in Republican advertising, prompted backlash from Michigan Democrats, the Times reported.
“I read in New York Times today … that one of my problems is if I ever run for president, I like Republicans,” Biden said during a speech at the Conference of Mayors’ winter meeting in Washington. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Although Biden has a longstanding reputation as a bipartisan deal-maker on Capitol Hill, his warm words for a Republican during last year’s heated midterms could hinder a possible presidential bid in 2020, especially with an increasingly packed Democratic field.
THIS WAS LAST NOVEMBER! 2018!
Joe Biden is a Quisling. A Traitor to the Democratic Party!
Why don’t you and your Republicans with a ‘D’ Centrists get the hell out of the Party and start your own New Dem DLC Third Way No Labels piece of crap and get out of the way of actually pursuing policies that improve people’s lives instead of the .01%ers who’s teats you’re sucking at for money?
No self respecting Sex Worker would give you the time of day sell out!
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