Joe Biden, the Original Change Candidate
By the time it was revealed late Friday night, Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate came as no surprise. Even more predictable is the response of Ron Fournier, the AP's Washington Bureau Chief, Bush cheerleader and almost McCain aide, that Biden is the "ultimate insider" who represents a rejection of Barack Obama's own campaign of "change." But as it turns out, once upon a time Joe Biden was himself the Democratic candidate of change and a new generation of leadership.
Back in 1983, then Democratic pollster (and sadly, current Fox News shill) Pat Caddell polled voters about match-ups between a hypothetical younger, new generation Democrat and front-runner Walter Mondale on the one hand and Republican President Ronald Reagan on the other. As Time recounted, the data suggested such a "generational" figure would present a compelling candidate in 1984:
One was dedicated to traditional politics and special interests; the other, young and imaginative, stressed new ideas and called for a new generation of leadership. Caddell professed surprise at how many people chose the Hart-like candidate in his loaded formulation.
And the man Caddell wanted to embody his new generation of leadership was Delaware Senator Joe Biden. But despite Caddell's entreaties, Biden opted to sit out that campaign. And as The Atlantic reported, "Biden's decision not to run in 1984 cleared the way for Hart to use the generational theme."
The rest, as they say, is history. After a surprising second place showing in Iowa, the candidate of "new ideas" and a "new generation of leadership" Gary Hart shocked Walter Mondale in New Hampshire. But for a few thousand votes in Georgia on Super Tuesday and subsequent slip-ups in Illinois, New York and New Jersey, Hart's change campaign might have won the Democratic nomination in San Francisco that July.
As for Biden, he picked up the change baton during his ill-fated 1988 presidential run. As the Atlantic noted, after Hart's implosion over the Donna Rice affair, the generational torch was passed to Biden:
On many issues Biden sounds a lot like Hart, particularly when he criticizes the role of special interests in the Democratic Party. But there is a lot more feeling in Biden's critique. Biden has become something of a contrarian in the party. He goes before labor groups and women's groups and peace groups and Democratic Party groups and says, "I want to say some things to you today and some of it you may not like"...
...Biden aims his pitch at the Baby Boom generation. His appeal, repeated in almost every major speech, is moving and evocative: "The cynics believe that my generation--having reached the conservative age of mortgage payments, pediatricians' bills, and saving for our children's education--are ripe for Republican picking. These experts believe that, like the Democratic Party itself, the less-than-forty-year-old voters are prepared to sell their souls for some security, real or illusory. They have misjudged us. Just because our political heroes were murdered does not mean that the dream does not still live, buried deep within the broken hearts of tens of millions of Americans." At more than one Democratic forum that passage has brought down the house.
Ultimately, of course, Biden's own undisciplined 1988 campaign foundered over the Kinnock flap, in which Biden delivered a speech featuring unattributed passages from the British Labor Party leader.
Despite the failures of its past messengers, the message of change is alive and well in the Democratic Party. While an embittered, contrarian Pat Caddell sold his soul to corporate masters from Coke to Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, Gary Hart was an early and enthusiastic endorser of Barack Obama. As for Joe Biden, he isn't merely now a more seasoned complement to Obama's insurgent candidacy. Joe Biden was, and is, a kindred spirit.
Biden is a disaster. Like Hart, he will implode by saying or doing something incredibly stupid and insensitive in public. Unfortunately, he stands a good chance of taking Obama with him.
Have you ever seen this guy interviewed? He seems completely oblivious to how his remarks sound to the public.
We would have been better off with Winona LaDuke. What was the Obama team thinking?