I watched the debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan again a couple of days ago. The truth is the Vice President handled himself better than anyone could have on the national stage. I thought he artfully projected the administration's broader foreign policy stance and single-handedly (yeah single-handedly) squashed an all-out assault on the part of the Romney ticket to discredit the administration's push back against Al Qaeda and engineering a major victory in Libya.
When America reexamines Biden's record among a limited Democratic field and weigh what some consider to be his biggest flaw, speaking his mind and being frank with us, then I think they'll give him second look.
I applaud Biden's response to folks popping the question on his decision to run. How can there be any good reasons to not run. He's been in politics his entire life. He's built a working class brand. During the 2012 campaign it felt reassuring when he put it bluntly, "I've got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive." I don't know how the race would've turned out if he didn't condense the message in stark terms at a time when it was close and America was really grappling with the unemployment numbers and what Obamacare was.
In the Biden Ryan debate I thought Ryan did better than expected, but Biden took the breath of Ryan's attack and called it "a bunch of malarkey". Before that debate, Obama campaign didn't have fangs. What is at the heart of the middle class' gripe is whether or not a fighter will be in the White House, someone that can go to congress and threaten the way President Lyndon Johnson did it without Executive Orders.
We've learned, and Obama didn't deny, the fact that Obama's campaign secretly thought about removing Biden from the ticket to choose Secretary Hillary Clinton. Obama has married the Clintons, his administration is actually an extension of the Clinton Administration. The purported candidate of change is largely another 8 years of the Clinton administration with just a slightly different flavor.
With Biden at least you'll see a different mold. While Governor Chris Christie presidential hopes are impaired, I think the Democrats should explore and cultivate all of their options instead of putting their few eggs in one basket. Their lacking ingredient with one word is toughness.
The Republicans have wreaked havoc on the Democrats signature stances and are winning. Their base is galvanized and in position to take the Senate back despite some major blunders. How is it that Boehner can chastise part of his base for shutting down the government and the Democrats not see it as an opportunity to seize the initiative? Let me say it here...the administration's commercials lauding The Affordable Care Act were a disgrace.
You can only conceive of the fact that millions of Americans are using "Obamacare" and view it as a vital program but still distrust the administration for implementing it not because American weren't educated about it, but because the GOP is doing a great job of making the Obama's signature program toxic. With a President Biden you get the sense that at the very least he'll be frank to us by saying something to the effect of, if you don't like it don't use it.
This administration have had many blunders playing it safe and being cordial to the venomous creators on Capitol Hill is not what the Democratic base wants and lacks the decisiveness that moderates are looking for in a leader. If Biden presents a little clarity about the breath and scope of the Democratic policies aimed at helping main street America as a contrast to what some in the GOP are peddling.
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