If He Runs, Ten Reasons Why Joe Biden Won't Win the 2008 Nomination

by HOWARD M. BERLIN

4/4/2005

Again the quadrennial guessing game about whether or not Joe Biden will run for the Democratic presidential nomination has officially started. I wish to be one of the first of his constituents to weigh in on the Delaware senior senator's chances of achieving his ambitious dream.

Mind you, I'm not trying to put a hex on his possible future campaign (singular or plural); I'm just being pragmatic. In no particular order of importance, I postulate the following ten reasons why his future candidacy is doomed before it gets much traction. Almost any one by itself might be sufficient, but taken together, they should deliver a fatal blow to his very slim chances.

1. Most politicians never attempt a run for their party's presidential nomination if they are up for reelection for their current job the same year. One recent notable exception was Sen. Joseph Lieberman in 2000. Biden's previous 1988 and a possible 2004 campaigns were waged when reelection for his Senate seat was not at stake. If my calculus of the election cycles is correct, Biden now for the first time faces the decision whether to run for the Democratic nomination or for reelection to the Senate, or as Lieberman did it, both offices simultaneously.

Of course, the timing is to Biden's advantage. The presidential primary season is starting earlier each time and most of the presidential wannabes will have already dropped out after the Super Tuesday primaries. Furthermore, the Delaware state conventions and primaries are rigged to occur late in the Summer months and September respectively to aid incumbents. By that time, Biden will have dropped out of the presidential race and will easily win nomination and reelection to his Senate seat. As in the past, he will receive weak Republican opposition.

2. Like it or not, running for national office from Delaware is not such a big prize. Usually the selection of a party's presidential candidate, and to some extent a vice-presidential nominee, are often based on what they bring to the table. This usually means money and votes. Delaware has a paltry three Electoral College votes which is not much that can really influence elections compared with candidates from states having substantially more votes. Biden is also a lightweight in raising money on the national scene. It is questionable whether his fundraising can sustain a national campaign long enough.

3. Modern electoral history is not on Biden's side either. Sitting senators as a general rule are not successful in winning the presidency; state governors are. Since John F. Kennedy and the elevation of the primary system, of the seven elected presidents, the last four were governors (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush). The other three presidents were a former U.S. Representative (Bush, Sr.) and two senators (Johnson and Nixon), both of whom had been elected first as vice president.

Governors generally have more experience in crafting a budget than do U.S. senators-most of whom spend most of their time trying to be another Secretary of State in addition to the one that was appointed by the president. Besides the act of voting for various bills and using the myriad of legislative tricks for getting money appropriated for pork barrel projects for the constituents back home, most members of Congress have no idea of what is in the federal budget and Biden has virtually no significant budgetary experience of note.

4. Although he appears fit and healthy right now, Biden nevertheless has had several serious medical emergencies requiring surgery which short-circuited past presidential campaigns. He suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm in 1988 and during the operation, a second aneurysm was discovered. During this episode, Biden was also treated for a blood clot in his lungs.

In 2003, he had his gall bladder removed while during a Florida vacation and was considering another presidential campaign. Medical maladies such as these can happen to anyone but we're not talking about something so inconsequential as a hangnail or tennis elbow. Voters prefer a presidential candidate with a reasonably clean medical history.

5. Biden's mouth. This is both his best and worst asset. Reminding me of Cuba's Fidel Castro with his long-winded monologues, Biden gives me the impression that he has never met a microphone or TV camera he didn't like. He is well-polished-his charisma is complete with histrionics and appropriate facial expressions. When on TV, whether on a Senate committee or the Sunday morning talk shows, Biden knows how to effectively and skillfully work the camera although his mouth has on occasion gotten him in trouble.

While a member of The News Journal Community Advisory Board, I once sat in on a meeting with Sen. Biden and the paper's editorial board. His opening remarks turned out to be a two and a half hour speech-mostly about his disapproval of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration's policy on Iraq and Afghanistan. He abruptly went from one topic to another without warning-pontificating all without one question being asked until it was nearly time to leave.

6. Plagiarism. There has been a lot written by the senator passing off other's words as his own and this will come back again to haunt him. Many people remember when Biden in 1987 used passages from speeches of Neil Kinnock, a Labor member of Britain's Parliament and himself a gifted orator. The senator was also accused of lifting passages from speeches of Robert Kennedy.

Years earlier while at Syracuse Law School, Biden received a failing grade in a course for plagiarizing a legal article-he reportedly lifted five full pages from the article. The plagiarisms became an issue during the 1988 campaign when Biden suffered his brain aneurysm. Apparently both incidents short-circuited his fledgling presidential campaign.

7. His 33-years in the Senate. As the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he did nothing about the genocide in Rwanda while ranking member of Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Clinton nor did he speak out effectively about many other inequities in the world perpetrated by other governments. If, at the time, he was such a big foreign policy know-it-all after 20 years in the Senate, how come he wasn't tapped Secretary of State then?

Because of his seniority during the early part of President Bush's first term in 2001, Biden was briefly faced with having chairmanships of both the Judicial and Foreign Relations committees. He wisely opted only for the Foreign Relations chair rather then be faced with the possibility of also chairing and vetoing Bush's judicial appointments-actions that he could be criticized for if he were to campaign again for president.

8. Ambitious aspirants for their party's nomination can't be in two places at the same time. Up to and including time taken out for campaigning in the 2004 Democrat primaries, early starter Rep. Gephardt (Missouri) had a 90 percent absentee rate, abandoning his congressional duties in his pursuit of the presidency. In the Senate, John Kerry was absent 60 percent of the time; Joe Lieberman, 52 percent.

If Biden is traipsing around the country in pursuit of the improbable dream, who's then back at the store representing Delaware? For our small state, we Delawareans expect and elect full-time senators to represent us. If Sen. Biden feels he has a mission to campaign for higher office, then he should resign from the Senate and let another person appointed by the Governor to fulfill the duties he can't.

9. He's Catholic and backs abortion. All things being equal, I don't think a candidate should be judged on a single issue and the subject of religion should be left out of politics. However, there are a lot of single-issue voters out there and John Kerry got stuck with the same label-hypocrisy. This was almost at the risk of excommunication and being denied communion in some dioceses. It's ok to be a Catholic and a Democrat, as was the case with JFK, but it is hypocritical to be pro-choice in addition.

10. In three words, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Of all the reasons I've cited, this is Biden's worst nightmare. There are still three years to go until the 2008 primaries and every poll shows that Hillary is now the top Democrat nominee even though she still faces reelection to the Senate in 2006. In many of these polls, Biden is not even on the radar screen while previous ambitious contenders like Kerry and Edwards still score high but not enough to beat Hillary.

Whether you like her not, Sen. Clinton has skillfully positioned herself more towards the Democratic center and at times almost could be mistaken for a moderate Republican. As a result, she gets more coverage and can raise more money than Biden-all in a mere four years in the senate. But to be fair, she's had a running start with eight years as her husband's co-president. At least she already knows where things are in the White House.

Biden himself in a recent interview on NBC's Meet the Press admits that "I think she is the most difficult obstacle for anyone being the nominee." Sounds like he has almost given up before he gets started.

For Biden, it's now or possibly never. Let's hypothesize that Hillary wins the 2008 election and follows it up with a second win in 2012. If Biden doesn't get a job with the Clinton administration and remains a senator, he will be 73 when the next presidential election cycle comes around in 2016 and faces the possibility of having to run against whomever Hillary's vice president was-not a good prospect.

As an alternative theory, suppose Hillary in her infinite wisdom as president appoints Biden as Secretary of State. If she wins two terms and Biden is still in the administration, he will have to resign early to run for the presidential primaries and will be out of a job for the first time in over forty years. The harsh statistics are that presidential cabinet appointees have almost zero chance of coming close to winning a party's presidential nomination. Then, the only chance Biden has at the preverbal shot the White House is that Hillary wins with Biden running as her vice presidential running mate.

As a sidebar, the press felt it was fair game to bring up the troubles that President Bush's twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, had gotten into. I don't think the escapades of a politician's children have any relation to the suitability of the parent for political office. But if it was ok to titillate the public about the trials and tribulations of Jana and Barbara Bush, or about Al Gore's son getting arrested for marijuana possession, then it is only fair to inform, if not remind, the public about Biden's daughter, Ashley Blazer Biden. She was arrested in Chicago back in August 2002 on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing a police officer. The incident did make national news but not one word was mentioned here on the local radio news or in The News Journal.

I've laid out my case and only time will tell what will happen.