Tag: Joe Biden

I’m finding the Biden run amusing, after a fashion, because of Joe’s absolute refusal to pander. He was right on NAFTA, doesn’t regret three strike laws, thinks the bankruptcy bill was great, is taking money from lobbyists (and started his campaign at a lobbyist run party), and so on.

And he’s way ahead in the polls. Oh, his lead is exaggerated because the polls are under-representing younger voters, who will actually come out for Sanders in higher than normal percentages. They’re also not including Independents who will vote in Democratic primaries and who broke for Sanders last time.

But they’re still accurate in the sense that a plurality of Democrats (and in a 1 v. 1 scenario, surely a majority) approve of Joe.

When Biden declared, most pundits were whinging on and about his record, which is terrible.

I wrote about the persona of “Uncle Joe” because that’s what matters to his electability. Joe is a meme, and in the meme he looks great. Your friendly, wonderful Uncle who’s maybe a bit handsy, but doesn’t mean anything by it. That’s Joe.

Moreover, most Democrats thought that the Obama/Biden administration did a good job. They’re, in my opinion, delusional (unless they’re in the top four percent or so), but that doesn’t matter, it’s what they believe. To them Obama was a good–even great–President.

And Joe was part of that. In fact, the most common Biden meme is some version of him and Obama having a great time (the Onion bears a huge responsibility for this, and if he wins they will have a great deal of responsibility for the disastrous policies which ensue (or his loss to Trump.)

So people think “Joe is a great guy” AND “Joe was integral to Obama’s Presidency, which I loved.”

Yeah…

Joe isn’t unbeatable, I suspect, but he starts out with some massive advantages. Sanders (or perhaps Warren, if she genuinely moves ahead of Sanders, which she has not yet, for the same reasons the polls overstate Biden’s support), will outperform the polls significantly.

But he’s still the odds-on favorite.

Because he’s “Uncle Joe” and because too many Democrats think Obama was the next coming of FDR, rather than the bought-and-paid-for servant of the banker class, and merciless murderer (he massively ramped up drone attacks, chose to destroy Libya, and supported the Saudi’s genocidal war on Yemen).

This is definitely the stupidest timeline: Trump and now a candidate who may be elected based on a persona created by memes, while his actual record is largely ignored.

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So, Biden’s in the primary. Plenty of other people are chewing up his record, which is terrible, so I’ll pass on that. Just remember that he’s the representative for fucking over poor people and minorities.

I want to address something else: Uncle Joe.

See, the thing is that Joe seems like a great friend, and an even better family guy. I believe that’s true, I’ve seen Biden and this comes across as genuine. Minus being overly handsy, Biden just has a really friendly vibe to him.

He’d be a great friend, and a better father or uncle.

But he’s not your father or uncle (well, unless he is, which is not my expected blog demo) and he never will be.

People have weird relationships with politicians. I remember back in 2000, the poll that showed people wanted to have a drink with Bush, and not with Gore.

Great, except “drinking buddy” isn’t your relationship with the President or anyone important enough to be nominee for president.

Don’t have fantasy relationships with politicians.

A politician is someone with power, and your relationship with one is as someone they can either help or fuck up, whom they don’t care about personally.

What matters is not how they act towards friends and family, but how they act towards people they don’t care about.

How they’re going to act towards you.

Biden has a clear record. If he doesn’t know you, and you aren’t rich, he doesn’t care about you. If you’re poor, owe money, or a cop ever thinks you might have done something wrong, he wants you hurt, badly.

That’s his record.

If you’re rich, of course, Biden’s a good candidate if the only people you care about are you and your rich friends.

But Biden capability of being a great friend and family member doesn’t apply to you unless you are actually his friend or family member.

What’s his (or any other politician’s) record toward people like you?

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So, Biden has someone accusing him of inappropriate touching.

Biden, as a perusal of news photos will show, has always been very, errr, touchy, with women.

Though he hasn’t said he’ll run for President in 2020, Biden is regularly included in the polling and generally runs just slightly ahead of Sanders, with the two of them well ahead of the other contenders. (Polling at this time is largely a matter of name recognition.)

This isn’t a problem which will go away. If Biden runs, more and more women will make these accusations, because Biden has been free with his hands. It may well be that he meant nothing offensive by it, but the fact is that he does it.

How much this matters is unclear. Trump did far worse things, we have tape, and it didn’t matter.

On the other hand Biden is running as a Democrat, not a Republican.

I suspect the wisest course of action for Biden would be not to run. But he’s reportedly upset he didn’t run last time, after seeing Clinton lose.

If he does run, however, this will be a persistent, open sore throughout his campaign, and probably into his Presidency.

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