Joe Biden Wading Deeper into Presidential Waters
With his party in the majority and hearings in the works that could help make him a household name, Sen. Joe Biden reiterated to a national television audience Sunday that he will run for president.
"I'll be Joe Biden and try to be the best Biden I can be," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press"... ...
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Biden has already said in interviews that he intends to run for president. Sunday, however, was the first time he announced he was filing papers to form an exploratory committee, which would set the campaign in motion.
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In Delaware, officials rallied to offer encouragement to Biden on Sunday.
"I think it's good news for our party, good news for our country," said state Treasurer Jack Markell. "He's clearly the most respected person in public life when it comes to foreign policy issues, which are more important than they've been in many years to our country."
Markell added: "He is extremely articulate; he is smart; he's tough, and he's able to connect with a very broad range of Americans, whether he is in a firehouse in Kentucky or a boardroom in Manhattan. He connects with people. And I don't think you can underestimate the importance of that."
I happen to think that, along with other Democrats who are running, that Biden would be a vast improvement over the current occupent of the White House. But I'm not sure that Biden understands some of the domestic issues of the day and I'm not sure how well he understands the growing problems of average Americans. But he is a force to be reckoned with even if his numbers are small.
One more thing. Although other Democrats voted for the Iraq measure in 2002, I wonder if Joe Biden had the same intelligence that Bob Graham had that led Graham to vote against the measure? Given his experience, what did Biden think of Bush's case for war? I'm not going to hold Biden's vote against him but he does have some questions that will have to be answered before very long.
Labels: 2008 presidential race, Joe Biden
posted by Poechewe at 9:14 PM
2 Comments:
I watched an interesting C-SPAN segment four or five years ago. Biden was in some Northeast city, speaking to a medium-sized crowd. He talked about education, Social Security, the budget deficit and the impact of service on the federal debt. He also talked critically about Republicans' use of wedge issues as distractions from things impacting millions of middle-class for the worse.
In moments, he came across as more than a little full of himself. He also cracked a couple of jokes at his own expense. In all, it was an excellent de facto stump speech and the crowd obviously received him well.
I think he'll be able to handle himself as well as any other candidate on domestic issues.
The one potential drawback for him and all the rest is taking a strong, forthright and consistent stand on the scourge that's come to be known as free trade and globalization. Kerry started out well on that issue in '04, but by spring it became obvious the moneymen had gotten to him. He toned it down to the point where you knew it was going to be a nonstarter from there on out.
S.W., your comments on Biden are right on.
It's an interesting thing about free trade and globalization. In principle, I sort of agree with the two concepts but the problem is that only conservative business people seem to get a chance to define what they mean. A real test right now is China; China wants to start allowing unions to negotiate contracts with large corporations and those corporations are balking. Weren't free trade and globalization supposed to be also an opportunity to help workers worldwide join a rising tide? I find myself leaning towards John Edwards at times, and his strong support of labor is a reason for that, but this is one occassion when Barack Obama might be the one who can reframe the arguments so that workers and jobs are taken more seriously.
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