I’m gonna go and ahead agree with Ed Kilgore in one sense and disagree with him in another.
With news filtering through Carl Bernstein that Camp Biden is considering a one-term-only run for the White House, it’s natural to speculate what that campaign and, perhaps, presidency would look like.
Ed doesn’t have a problem so much with the pledge to only serve a single term, and I think (concessions to Father Time aside) that it’s a horrible idea.
What’s bothering Ed is the stated rationale for Biden’s run, which can be summed up as “I’m the only guy around here who can work with these lunatics in Congress and get things done.”
Frankly, I think that’s an ingenious campaign strategy and precisely what might work. It even has a patina of credibility, but only because Biden has a better relationship with Senate Republicans than any other Democrat in the country. That doesn’t make him the Green Lantern, and he would still discover that he can’t deal with them, at all. It’s just that there literally isn’t anyone else who could even make the smallest plausible case that he or she can break the gridlock in Washington through better personal relationships with the opposition.
When we look back at Obama’s winning formula, the whole “we’re not a blue America or a red America” thing was that was got people paying attention to him in the first place, and it fulfilled a hope that a lot of people had that someone could unite the country and get us past the incessant bickering in Washington.
Even if you go to Iowa and talk to conservatives, you’ll see that they’ve lost faith in the status quo and want someone who can just detonate the whole political process into a million pieces.
A senior Iowa Republican who is advising another campaign added, “There’s not a single issue people ever point to as the reason they’re supporting Trump. They believe he’ll just blow it up, blow up the system, that somebody needs to blow up the system.”
Over on the left, you’re seeing similar sentiments among stadiums full of Bernie Sanders supporters who no longer want to hear about who is and who isn’t “electable.”
It’s not an ideal time to be a Clinton or a Bush, and if you’re running for Obama’s third-term, you need to explain what’s going to be different. I don’t think Hillary can make a plausible case for that unless she can win so big and has such big coattails that the Republicans are ushered out of power in Congress. It’s not impossible for her to pull that off, but Biden needs his own argument.
So, his argument is basically that he’ll serve just one term and he’ll use it to bridge the divide.
It doesn’t strike me as doable or even necessarily desirable, but as a campaign message it seems spot on to me.
And, yes, I know that Obama paid a price for making a promise he couldn’t keep. He paid a price for trying to keep a promise that could not be fulfilled. But, guess what?
He won. And then he won again.
So, if this is Biden’s plan to explain why he’s needed and Hillary is not, it’s a pretty good one.
And I can’t really think of a better one that doesn’t get down into the weeds of foreign policy and cause some kind of rift within the administration or between the administration and the Clintons.
I guess I am just beyond expecting good policy or realistic promises to equal a winning campaign. Call me cynical, but I’ve learned the hard way.
No thanks. I remember the last time a Conservadem wanted to work with the right’s agenda. He got played.
I don’t understand why a one-term commitment would be appealing to anyone.
It pretty much ended Teddy Roosevelt’s career, didn’t it?
So the Democratic establishment has no plan for ridding the lunatics in Congress (does that include the Democratic caucus as well?). And Biden (an establishment Democrat if there ever was one–formerly the Senator from your credit card companies) wants to see another Horatio-at-the-bridge Presidency but for one term. Well, yes, one more midterm of business as usual will just about do in the Democratic Party entirely.
I think that the Biden hint and the Al Gore false rumor were to test the solidity of Clinton’s current commitments. If either enter, at least one of them will be going hard against Bernie’s momentum.
I’m cynical enough to think that with some of the Washington players, the sole purpose is preserving current financial arrangements and fitting the policy just to keep the corruption going. While police departments go on a spending spree for LRAD’s, the infrastructure collapses, and the moar war boys and girls get their share of the tax loot while seniors and succeeding generations lose Social Security, Medicare, and any minimal control of the government.
The promise of Bernie’s candidacy is to stop that (or at least that why folks are responding). The promise of Trump’s candidacy is to just do it and get it over with. And get on with the bonfire of the “undeservings'” vanities.
As long as campaigns are selling toothpaste, there is no policy argument except as a sparkling toothpaste “feature”.
Yup, the PDs are slowing prepping and smoothing people into the police state so they can smash down the opposition as violently as possible if it ever becomes necessary.
We’re well on our way to third world country, as you can see when you look at the prevalence of tropical diseases in the south.
Yes, we are well on out way to being a third world country, MNPundit.
Ross Perot publicly predicted this in one of his debates w/the PermaGov candidates Clinton and Bush I. What was going to happen, why and how he’d stop it.
He was mocked by Bush and Clinton, non-personed by the media for his stance and quite possibly threatened by the PermaGov police as well. He dropped out, and here we jolly well are, aren’t we.
Like I said…there we jolly well are, aren’t we.
AG
I see Biden calculating Dems just aren’t enthused by Hillary or she makes them nervous in the (pseudo) scandal sense to want to consider another choice, but not the dull Walter O’Malley or the other two also-rans (Link Appleyard I believe and Jimmy Webb).
Biden also wouldn’t be overly worried about Bernie’s mo at the moment because they appeal to mostly non-overlapping constituencies. Just as Humphrey wasn’t worried about getting in after seeing McC grow in strength.
He didn’t worry after Bobby was shot.
No thanks but a Biden/Trump debate would be big fun.
Um, couldn’t Biden (the sitting VP) be showing his superpowers in dealing with “the lunatics” right now if the WH thought he actually had such powers, which he most obviously does not. The Repub lunatics won’t listen to him now, nor in the future. They were not elected to govern, obviously. The lunatics exist to render the gub’mint permanently paralyzed, and Smilin’ Joe can’t do one thing about it, no matter how many times he sat in the sauna with old man Orrin. Only a fool would think otherwise.
Tarheel muses about why we are hearing rumors from these Dem warhorses right now, as Sanders runs the table with large rallies (unremarked by the corporate media), while the presumptive nominee shows up virtually anonymously in Big Blue Cities to collect her $5K per head cashola. One has to wonder what’s behind these rumors. Get thy house in order, Madame Secretary? What’s the plan?
Biden has always thought he was a much greater prez candidate than any voter ever did–he ran and completely fizzled at least twice, right? He thought voters liked Obama in 2008 because he was “clean”, remember.
“unremarked by the corporate media”
Really? I think there’s been a lot of mainstream coverage of Sanders. The media wants a horse race for ratings. If it’s only Hilary on the Dem side, no one will be watching.
The day that Sanders pulled into first place in New Hampshire the horse-racing analysis in the media went strangely silent.
Not the MSM places I visited when that rather dubious poll came out. Msnbc and CNN covered it prominently. HuffPo too.
And why wouldn’t they — it shows (to the extent that poll can be believed) seriously declining support for Hillary, something most media outlets would applaud. Lawrence O’Donnell probably is cheering too.
This Government Media Complex spate of Biden for Preznit things is a movement…a hint maybe as well, a run-it-up-the-flagpole-and-see-who-salutes move…that the PermaGov has already pretty much decided that HRC is done. They’re getting nervous. Scared of Trump, no doubt, and with good reason. Gotta find someone reliable, and who is more reliable than our lovable ex-Senator from MBNA?
Watch.
AG
He has a “D” after his name. The same thing would happen to him, or Mrs. Clinton, that happened to Obama.
A president who isn’t a Republican, isn’t a real president.
End of.
This is a terrible idea. People say they want compromise, but what they really want is for the other side to just knuckle under to their obviously correct politics.
Ed Kilgore needs to put down the opium pipe and visit reality. There’s no there, there, in the Party for a Biden run.
typo in lead sentence: I’m gonna go ahead [and] agree with
On the idea – it’s scary – would Biden have achieved the Grand Bargain or the Summers nomination?
Should we ask why and by whom this idea is being floated at this somewhat late point in the primary election process?
Other than Cheney, sitting and former VPs and those nominated to the VP slot on a losing ticket have been eying the top job since at least 1960. Did it just dawn on Biden that compared to others in the race, he’s not too old to go for it one more time?
Is it about an Obama/Biden legacy?
Or are there concerns among some elites about Clinton’s electability? Something brewing that we rubes don’t know about?
I smell a concocted story in the dead of August about Clinton’s electability. Something, anything not to talk about Sanders. Thus, Biden and Gore. Who if they entered would clearly be stalking horses to siphon off some of the Bernie vote—or would that been the Clinton vote?
I can’t keep up with all the cynical ways insiders could play a story like this one. Just know it’s a dumb move for the public.
I’m not even smelling that much. Does nothing mean nothing? Probably in this instance. Just a few MSM fantasists noting that Biden continues to poll better than O’Malley, Webb, and Chaffee opining with “What about Joe?”
It’s not coming from the right or Camp Clinton (which includes a huge chunk of Congress and the DNC). Neither gains anything from Biden being in the mix and both could lose something in the process.
At the risk of over-think, there is a divide between Camp Clinton and Obama/Biden/Kerry. Some of the divide is substance (Israel and ‘mo war) but most of it is style. Obama and Biden are simply more generically likable than Clinton. Obama/Biden/Kerry have demonstrated better negotiating chops and they don’t generate political drama. At this point Clinton has all the power players and the money along with a not insignificant portion of women say, “Our turn” (not going to wait fifty years again for our turn). Sanders has the leftie enthusiasm.
One other observation, Obama’s team doesn’t leak — and they’ve gotten better at that since 1/13.
I feel like there isn’t one responsive comment in this thread, which is why, I guess, it’s so easy to play 12-dimensional chess.
I’ve been lurking here for a long time and rarely comment, but I find it difficult to reply to this post because if I’m reading it correctly, and Ive read it several times, you’re saying that the next president’s biggest problem will be lack of bipartisanship? That we should choose our next president on the basis of how well he can make friends with 300 fanatics? And that somehow, they’ll accept/respect Joe Biden as a legitimate president? Wow. And people make jokes about Green Lanternism.
Okay, so you’ve read it entirely wrong down to the commas and italics.
I am talking an electoral strategy.
I could give a shit what the Democratic candidates say, really, because none of them can do a thing with Congress.
If what they say wins them the nomination and the presidency, then it was a good idea to say those things.
Then they can watch the GOP filibuster their judges, refuse to pay our bills on time, and issue some executive orders.
Sweet victory!!
Actually, we should be able to win back the Senate, so maybe we can get some judges confirmed. But that’s about it.
I think I understand what you mean here. Thanks for taking me through it. As a strategy for Biden what you describe does makes sense only in that it’s the one space I can see available to him that he could carve out to distinguish himself in stark relief from Clinton. The Villagers loves them some bipartisanship. But Primary voting Dems like me hate the Villagers. My idea of the ideal Obama 3rd term is a president who appreciates the learning curve of the first Obama term where he spent 4 years reaching across the aisle and pulling back a stump. If a Democrat promises comity uber alles with this bunch, all I hear is Grand Bargain for real this time. No thanks. I understand the Biden USP of bipartisanship you’ve articulated here, but It’s real weak sauce in this primary. Rancid actually.
I’m afraid you have it right Boo. Exc analysis. Biden’s candidacy does have a narrow set of raisons d’être and why not that he’s a better player at bipartisanship than Hillary. It resonates immediately bec people see her as divisive, even plenty of Dems.
What else does he have? That Hillary has gone too far left? Won’t work this cycle. That her FP wasn’t tough enough and he Biden would be? Again a loser w Dems. More experienced than her? She has plenty by now. Another dead end.
…yourself right there in the post. Nothing much else to say about it.
The non-political are pretty frustrated with the unending political war we have. I do think Obama tapped into a hope that this could be ended in some way. We forget that because he took office when he did, the first thing he did (stimulus) was going to blow much of that apart. Had Obama inherited an economy not on the verge of collapse, he might (though I doubt it) have been able to lower the temperature a little.
Americans are polarized more than they want to think they are. A candidate does, I think, need to be able to make some type of claim that he can lessen this.
Having said that, I see little in Biden’s political persona that would allow him to do that. I don’t think strong senate relationships are transferable into a larger message.
Democrats are casting about, I think, because they see that Clinton is not a great candidate and her unfavorables are rising. So a couple of boomlets have happened, one involving Gore, that suggest a distaste for just how ugly and uncertain a Clinton race would be.
I’d prefer a message of, “I’m going to get things done and you’re going to help me by firing the lunatics in Congress.”
I miss coattails.
I think this will be a totally post-policy election like you said. O’Malley is trying to be a policy guy and he’s getting crushed by two big personalities in Clinton and Sanders.
On the GOP side it’s all personality, I haven’t heard one policy argument at all.
I’m just going to respond to a minor point in Booman’s post:
“And, yes, I know that Obama paid a price for making a promise he couldn’t keep. He paid a price for trying to keep a promise that could not be fulfilled.”
All true. What’s also true is that Obama’s strategy 1) helped him accomplish many of the major goals he had, and 2) helped polarize the two parties so that Republicans have an increasingly difficult time winning the White House (and will have an increasingly difficult time holding first Senate, then House seats as the electorate continues to move away from them).
There’s a price to be paid for any strategy a politician (or organization, or movement) adopts. The question is: what can you get for that price?
(Additionally, it’s debatable whether the first Black president of this country could have successfully adopted any other strategy.)
Terrific points all, massappeal.
OT but I can’t resist. The Donald is taking questions in NH and it is on CNN. He seems awfully relaxed. Somewhat surprising. Taken shots at Jeb! And Chima and the idiots in Washington.
Krugman has highlighted your post on “The Worst Ruth Marcus Column Ever ” in a very approving way.
On this Biden story? Forget it. Biden’s boat has long since sailed. It may hold some water inside the beltway, but I could see Independents voting Republican rather than Biden “to get things done”. That way, they can have a Republican President and Congress working in tandem. Why vote for Biden when you can vote for one party Republican Government?