Joe Biden’s campaign is playing out as billed in every respect. Most notably, he is committing one political gaffe after another. Of course, that is supposed to endear this ordinary Joe to many voters.
The problem is that he is also manifesting two of Donald Trump’s many disqualifying traits:
- Telling bold-faced lies
- Refusing to apologize, come what may
Biden demonstrated the first by insisting that he never opposed 1970s busing to desegregate schools. Contemporaneous videos and documents abound showing that he did. He demonstrated the second by refusing to apologize after Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey called him out. This, for hailing infamous segregationists because they called him “son” instead of “boy.”
Surely all of that is discouraging enough. But Biden looked like Trump — trying in vain to explain his high crimes and misdemeanors to Jesus Christ — during the defining moment of the first debate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Sen. Kamala Harris proved she can command a debate stage by confronting former Vice President Joe Biden over questions of racial equality in a strong performance that could boost her standing in the crowded Democratic nomination contest. …
The Harris-Biden exchange was the most dramatic during four hours of debate that featured 20 of the 24 candidates competing for the nomination.
(The Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2019)
Interestingly, their exchange appeared to leave former front-runner Bernie Sanders — who was positioned between them — channeling Admiral Stockdale’s famous lament: “Who am I, why am I here?”
No less interesting, though, is that Harris is just the latest woman to vindicate the assertion I made in “Women Make Better Politicians than Men,” October 14, 2010.
Just wait ’til y’all give us equal pay.
In any event, Biden’s performance to date has been such that I am replacing him at the top of my 2020 ticket with Harris and adding Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio as her running mate. If you watched that first debate, you might recall Ryan as the folksy guy who kept trying to outdo Sanders as the champion of “the forgotten workers.”
His rust-belt bona fides complement Harris’s presumed coastal elitism well. That he’s an avowed yogi might endear this man from flyover country to coastal elites as well.
(Mayor Pete Buttigeig was my second VP pick. But it would be asking voters to suspend too much prejudice to have a black woman at the top and a gay man at the bottom of a presidential ticket — the national appeal of June’s LGBTQ Pride Month notwithstanding.)
Granted, you’d be forgiven for thinking Ryan disqualified himself with one of the most cringeworthy moments of the debate. It came when war veteran Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii had to explain to him that it was al-Qaeda not the Taliban who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. It was a gaffe. Ryan knows better.
But I am mindful that a similar cringeworthy moment did not disqualify Barack Obama in 2008. It came when he arrogantly returned Hillary’s compliment about him being “very likable” with a sideways quip about her being “likable enough.”
So hang in there, Tim. Harris-Ryan 2020!
[Note: Democratic contenders are scheduled to have another 11 debates. But I see no point in watching, let alone commenting, any further.]
Related commentaries:
Biden-Harris ticket…
Men should be barred…
Women’s World Cup…