Lance Mannion: It's Joe

Posted Saturday morning, April 6, 2019.

From the Departments of Like I Would Know and God, I Hope Not!:

It’s Biden.

It’s Biden the way it was Trump.

People know him. They like him. What’s more they think he knows them.

In Trump’s case they liked the “Donald Trump” they knew from “The Apprentice.”

In Biden’s, they like Barack Obama’s Vice-President.

And once people know someone and like them they’re inclined to forgive them just about anything. Try to convince them that something someone they like has done is not forgivable or excusable and they will happily explain how it is, usually by telling you that what that someone did isn’t at all like what someone else they don’t like did that they agree wasn’t excusable or forgivable when that someone else they don’t like did it.

Or if you can get them to admit---grudgingly---that you have a point, it looks bad, they’ll then tell you that what the someone they like did is like someone else they like and you like too did and you find yourself in the position of having to explain why that thing the someone you both like did wasn't like this thing; or, even more awkward, that there were mitigating factors that made what that someone you both like forgivable or excusable or at least not as bad; or---really awkward and not at all convincing--- that someone else should have paid the price you’re now arguing the someone they like should be paying.

And inevitably, somewhere in the course of the argument, they’re going to say, “Well, you can find something bad to say about all them.”

Please don’t try to tell me all the ways Trump is worse. I know he’s worse. I’ve written about how bad Trump is a few times. If you’re a glutton for punishment you can vett me by reading a few old posts in my archives: here and here.

Or you can just scroll down.

There’s a lot that should be counting against Joe. Maybe it will given the time between now and the first debates.

Among the particulars:

His handling of the Clarence Thomas hearings and particularly his taking Thomas’ side against Anita Hill. His vote on the Iraq War. His being in the pockets of the credit card companies. But the Clarence Thomas debacle didn’t do him serious political damage at the time, and it was twenty-seven years ago. The Iraq War vote didn’t count against Kerry and it didn’t count against Hillary, and that was sixteen years ago. And with the bankruptcy bill he was serving the interests of one of his state’s biggest industries and isn’t that something voters want their congressional representatives to do? And, oh yeah, that was fourteen years ago.

None of that has figured majorly in the popular image of him. But his eight years as Vice-President fixed him in people’s imaginations...and their hearts.

If any of the above was going to count against him it would have been in 2008 when Obama was vetting him for his VP.

Then there’s this. A lot of Democrats and Democratic-voting independents and Republicans thought he should have been the nominee in 2016. They wanted him to get in it. They’re convinced he woulda won. And he woulda. If. There’s always an if. Bernie woulda won if. Hillary woulda won IF. Biden’s if is lower case and unitalized and comes with a implicit “But it probably would have worked out in his favor.”

Biden is Joe in a way Bernie isn’t Bernie and Hillary isn’t Hillary. There’s no edge when people say his name. The edge in Hillary or Bernie is either defensive or sneering. When people say Joe there’s nothing but affection.

People like him. People don’t like Hillary or Bernie. Those of us who love either have a hard time getting our heads around this. People don’t love our favorites and see their worth the way and to the degree we do. My dearly departed and sorely missed uncle, an old, white guy from a blue collar town loved Hillary. But my aunt didn’t. Boy, how she didn’t. And she’s as liberal and true blue a Democrat as my uncle was. Mom Mannion doesn’t like her. Hasn’t liked her since she appeared on the scene. Pop Mannion wasn’t a fan and only came around when he started seeing her in comparison to Bernie. He really didn’t like Bernie.

I play a mental game with myself: Which of the Democratic contenders would Pop Mannion be getting behind? I think he’d have liked Pete, but that’s because I see Pete as having a lot in common with Pop. That wouldn’t have clinched it for Pop, though. He wasn’t that vain, particularly when it came to politics. What I think would have drawn him to Pete was Buttigieg’s experience, talent, and success as a local politician. That was one of the things he liked about Joe. Biden has been much more of local politician than most senators are but which the great ones have always been. Ted Kennedy was a Boston pol as much as he was Massachusetts senator and a national leader of the Democratic Party. Joe was Pop’s guy in ‘88. And he held out hope he would jump in in 2016. Like I said, he wasn’t alone. Hillary benefited from her apparent inevitability and from her having been Obama’s Secretary of State. Bernie benefited from his not being Hillary. Among both their supporters were sizable contingents of voters who wished they had another choice, and among them was a sizable cohort who wished that other choice was Joe.

The others running---the ones I like and am rooting for ahead of Joe and I believe have the best chances: Harris, Warren, Booker, Buttigieg---might have political skills and talents of their own to match his. But I’m worried that with Joe in it they won’t get to show them off on TV. The political media won’t give them air the time. If Joe’s on the debate stage come June, they won’t be---that is, they might as well not be for all the attention they’ll get from the media. That’s another way he’s our Trump. The media will cover him to the exclusion of the others except to ask them what they thought of how Joe did. Maybe they’ll still be infatuated enough with Mayor Pete that he’ll get attention in his own right too. But then the horse race "analysis" will focus on how Joe should pick him for his VP.

By the way, just throwing this out there: Biden-Gillibrand.

Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking this morning. Keep in mind I started writing this post as soon as I rolled out of bed, and I might have woken up from a bad dream. All my thinking on this could be the result of a mood of the moment. Three more mugs of coffee might cure it. And, once again, like I would know. I really didn’t think he’d get in it this time. I thought all his talk was just that of an old man indulging his vanity by imagining a return to glory days that never really were. Maybe that’s what’s still going on. But probably not.

My own reluctance to get on the Biden bandwagon has to do with his age. As I keep saying, no more presidents older than me. This isn’t ageism. It’s realism. Biden is in good health and apparently of sound mind. But at his age both physical and mental decline---even without dementia---can be precipitous. We don’t want another president who doesn’t have the mental or physical energy to do the job. I’m not talking just about Trump. I’m thinking of Wilson, FDR, and Reagan too. But Biden’s age is a factor in another way makes me even less enthusiastic about him. His time has passed.

He says he gets it. It’s a new era. Times have changed. He admits he has to change with them. The problem is that’s not something eighty year olds find easy to do. The wisest of them don’t change, they just know to get out of the way. They resign themselves, contentedly and cheerfully, to watching from the front porch as the world carries on without them. I’m afraid Joe’s would be a nostalgia campaign.

But, for the hundredth time, like I would know.

I don’t believe Biden’s our only hope for beating Trump. I don’t even think he’s our best hope. But an awful lot of people think he’s both. And I can see how they see him as such.

He’s Trump’s mirror image, his inverted double. He's his William Wilson (Mayor Pete can cite Joyce. I can cite Poe.), the good man Trump knows he isn’t and can’t be: A skilled and talented politician with a record of achievement, who appeals to working and middle class voters of all colors and both genders without appealing to their hatreds, resentments, and fears. An old school shake every hand-kiss every baby campaigner who knows how to talk to people and, more important, listen to them. A regular guy with a real sense of humor, a bit of a goof but in a lovable way, who happens to be smarter than most everybody else in the room but doesn’t make a show of it. Someone who is capable of enjoying life without his enjoyment coming at other people’s expense. A tall, strong, loving man whose whole adult life has been devoted to public service. A good husband (and this would come up. Where’s Biden’s first wife? Not collecting on her pre-nup and dropping bits of gossip when the mood takes her) and good father. Which brings me to one more thing.

He wrote a book.

Comments

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Well written as always.

Doesn't matter - any of his past transgressions (and I gotta tell you if you want to create a front or fraudulent company or launder money through a front or fraud or legit company for that matter, do it in Delaware) - what matters is that he is too old. So is Bernie; so is and was The Donald, so was Hillary. My limit age-wise is Warren. If you want to see why, just take a look at pictures of President Obama before and after and imagine what the job would do to a man/woman already in their 70s.

Posted by: Chris The Cop | Saturday, April 06, 2019 at 12:11 PM