It may come as no surprise that there are a lot of characteristics of Joe Biden, now running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, that I like, and that many of them fall into the category of experience. After all, the one characteristic of every other Democratic candidate is they’ve never worked at a high level in the White House. True, some of candidates have executive experience at the city and\/or state levels. However, in my view, this is only a taste of what the White House requires, and a very slight one.<\/p>\n
Biden brings 8 years of experience as Vice-President, and a very busy Vice-President at that, a VP who became close friends with President Obama, and an integral member of the team. In short, he knows how My main objection is his age. I have to wonder about a guy who wants to be President in his late 70s. Vitiating this objection would be the selection of a VP candidate, of course, and so I shan’t belabor the point.<\/p>\n But if you want to know how he’ll match up with Trump, see Andrew Sullivan’s diary entry<\/a> for this week. Sullivan goes against the received wisdom of the left side punditry and believes Biden may be the antidote to flush Trump right out of our system. He has details, and I found it enlightening.<\/p>\n And his strength is drawn from two contrasting bases: older, moderate whites, and African-Americans. Although his share is in the 30s overall, he has a whopping\u00a050 percent share<\/a>\u00a0among nonwhite Democrats, according to the latest CNN poll. A Morning Consult poll\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0him with 43 percent of the black vote, including 47 percent support among African-American women. Biden\u2019s deep association with Obama gives him a lift in the black vote no other white candidate can achieve. And so it turns out that the base of the Democrats has not been swept into the identity cult of the elite, wealthy, white left. As a brand-new CBS poll<\/a>\u00a0finds, Democrats may prefer a hypothetical female nominee over a male (59\u201341 percent), a black nominee over a white one (60\u201340 percent), and someone in their 40s to someone in their 70s. But that\u2019s in the abstract. In reality, Biden seems to scramble these preferences.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also been able to reach non-college-educated white men in ways few other candidates could. That\u2019s a big fucking deal in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin \u2014 and if Biden can carry those states, he\u2019ll be the next president. He\u2019s a union man, and always has been. In what was a brilliant ad-lib, Biden began a speech to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers by making a joke about the excesses of #MeToo \u2014 \u201cI had permission to hug Lonnie,\u201d the union leader, he quipped. Later, as he brought some kids onstage, he joked again, as he put his hands on the shoulders of a boy: \u201cHe gave me permission to touch him.\u201d The crowd\u2019s reaction both times was bellows of laughter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Which is to say, as much as progressives would like to convert the country to their views in an Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It may come as no surprise that there are a lot of characteristics of Joe Biden, now running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, that I like, and that many of them fall into the category of experience. After all, the one characteristic of every other Democratic candidate is they’ve never \u2026 Continue reading the<\/del> this branch of government works, and to me, that’s a valuable asset for Biden. I’ve not noticed any intolerable policy positions, and if he’s made some mistakes over the years, he seems to own up to them and correct them when he can. He’s apparently been an inveterate union champion, which on balance is a good thing.<\/p>\n\n
instance<\/del> instant, the truth of the matter is that these things can take time, and it appears Joe may understand that. It’ll be interesting to see if Biden fades down the stretch, or becomes the monster of the midway.<\/p>\n