When someone runs for president, there are required preliminaries, one of which almost has to be some kind of autobiography, either written or ghostwritten, carefully outlining policy preferences without coming right out and announcing the candidacy. If the momentum follows, there's plenty of time to do that through an 'exploratory committee' and the like.
So when Joe Biden, ex-Vice President, appeared at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee back in 2017, ostensibly to hawk his book Promise Me, Dad, it didn't take an unimpeachable swami to figure out that he was on a fishing expedition in a battleground state, seeing if there would be enough takers upon which to base that candidacy.
I was there. I've always been a Joe Biden fan. I liked his style, his personable approach, what passed as genuineness (but with politicians, you never know), his inclination to laugh at himself, his readiness to see that rubbing elbows and working a room is how to get people comfortable enough to make deals--which is what democracy has always been about, when it has worked sufficiently.
But I was moved by what the host, former Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle, said about the Obama Administration: "Barack Obama saved the United States of America" when it looked like it was about to plunge into financial ruin back in 2009-12.
Looking back, that's hard to disagree with. For sure, Obama saved public education by guaranteeing its funding, even though his insistence in cleaning up flaws in the standardized testing system, instead of getting rid of it, would also be a focus. That's a trade-off made to go. The liaison for that thinking, at least between his folks and the NEA, the nation's top education union, was Vice-President Joe Biden.
Biden was also the point person in Obama's effort to get meaningful gun control legislation passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre of late 2012. But even that horror couldn't budge Republicans to stand down on profit-sharing (in a way) in lieu of saving kids from deadly ambush.
Certainly, Biden has his flaws. He has a propensity to forget when the camera's on. He's had to watch himself making 'friendly' gestures toward women (and survived an accusation of sexual touching from a woman who just as suddenly disappeared when she couldn't get much traction), So you can say that Biden's time for the White House may have had as much to do with the lower standards advanced by ex-, who has absolutely no standards except teetotalism, which is hidden behind the anarchy of amoralism.
That couldn't possibly be Joe Biden's watchword. The motivator for his book was the death of his son, Beau, from brain cancer in 2015. It also was a motivator behind not running for president in 2016, standing down from a battle with Hillary Clinton, though he had given it serious thought. "I was still grieving," he wrote about that withdrawal, and added,
I made sure to be upbeat, to keep my shoulders back, to smile. I had no prepared speech, just notes, but I knew I wanted to make it clear that I was still optimistic about the future of the country and that I was not going to stop speaking out. "I believe we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart, and I think we can. It's mean-spirited. It's petty. And it's gone on for too long. I don't believe, like some do, that it's naive to talk to Republicans. I don't think we should look at Republicans as our enemies. They are our opposition, not our enemies. And for the sake of the country, we have to work together. Four more years of this kind of pitched battle may be more than this country can take."
Eight years later, the words echo. The polarization has hardened. Biden couldn't intercept the process because it's been led by someone spurred on by personal ambition alone and a strange ability to make supporters tune out from the obvious peril into which they would also be thrust. It's much harder to find a Republican with whom to have a decent conversation.
I'm sorry, Joe. Ex- is the enemy of what the United States of America stands for: Good governance, consensus-building, getting along with those who disagree, moving the country forward, or at least trying to. You tried to leapfrog the opposition that's bound and determined to rocket us back 75 years, but you couldn't. I'm not sure anyone could.
Add to that the sharp reaction of what's left of the undecided public to Biden's awful, withered, frail appearance on the debate stage, and the writing quickly appeared on the wall. Joe Biden didn't lose his quest for a second term just because of a bad night; he lost it because the presidency wears a person down. At 81, he no longer has what has become obvious that a person needs to sustain themselves in the position: An unquenchable source of energy. That night was the manifestation of it, though there had been earlier signs that denial and staff protection had disguised. Four years of wondering about that was too much for too many to contemplate.
Biden railed against the trend he'd set into motion for three weeks or so, but numbers don't lie. His top two aides delivered the bad news Saturday night: There was no path to victory, which meant, ironically, that his stubbornness and selfishness, not that of he with nearly a monopoly on both, would take him, his party and the country down with them. Too.
He made the best decision, a self-sacrifice that will be recalled by historians forever, flying in the face of what nearly all politicians crave. Behind him is a legacy of a quiet return to governmental competence; something of a national recovery from a terrible bout with Covid; absolutely no Cabinet or Executive Branch scandals or any significant controversy (with the possible exception of the Secret Service's strange, recent inability to protect ex- from an assassination attempt, which should bother everyone); and dropping inflation to an acceptable level (Interest rates remain a problem, though they're one of the chief mechanisms.). He could have done better on the border, too, but a deal he tried to set into motion with Congress, one that would have been highly acceptable to Republicans, was denied for fealty to a monster.
Biden tried to point some of those things out in a speech from the Oval Office. He tried to frame the campaign in terms of saving democracy. He's right, but the way he got through his speech did little more than advertise that time and duties have reduced his presentation abilities that, now lacking, are inimical to sustain the vitality of the office and confidence in it. He has governmental competence and ex- has bluster; it would seem that one would have been squandered for the other.
Here's hoping Kamala Harris brings that up and helps people think about that, maybe posturing that with her, you just might get both. Too. I do not envy her. The opposition is already trying to deflect her talents with smearing and lies and innuendoes and exaggerations, and it will get far worse. But her mind is quickly responsive and razor sharp, and I'm already looking forward to whatever debate the two can have.
There's no guarantee of a logical, factual approach leading to ex-'s defeat. But with the cloud hanging over Biden now gone, there may be some discussion of policy alternatives, which the Democrats have consistently won during this century. We can only hope.
Biden has suggested his would be a transitional presidency. That it will be--either to a brighter new day, or down the stairs to a new disaster led by a con man with unprecedented lust for power for which the Supreme Court has already paved the way. That will be our call.
In the meantime: Farewell, Joe. Thanks so much for saving the United States of America. Again. At least for a while. "Still" would be a better word, but we can't use that one. We don't know if democracy will survive. Yet. But we know that in yielding, you've given it its best chance in this perilous moment.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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