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California Member
Democratic National Committee
After months of speculating, we finally have a complete Democratic ticket. Joe Biden, the spirited and sometimes animated Senator from Delaware, joins Barack Obama for what will no doubt be a rough and tumble general election. Tough fights have been a defining part of Biden’s career, and his three decades of experience may only be rivaled by his willingness to get into a political tussle.
He is known as a talented orator, someone who can turn a speech into a “moment.” He was the Barack Obama of the Senate years before there was even a Barack Obama. And he’s experienced – he chairs the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and his tenure in Washington is more than that of Obama and John McCain combined. His foreign policy expertise adds particular gravitas to the ticket.
Biden doesn’t keep a Washington home – he makes the three-hour roundtrip commute to and from Delaware each day. He’s not a wealthy man; his only income is his government salary, which consistently ranks him as one of the poorest of the U.S. Senate (all things being relative, still a better living that most).
In the annals of presidential election anecdotes, there is the ever-lingering question, “who would you rather have a beer with,” a metric that Americans use in determining who they like personally like more.
You don’t have beers with Joe – you do shots with him.
Biden isn’t jovial – he’s intense. He’s smart as a whip and can verbally spar with the best of them. He’s accountable to details and zeroes in on a subject with laser-like focus.
He has his weaknesses. He has run for president twice, in 1988 and most recently in 2008, flat lining both times. And he is prone to verbal gaffes, which is a problem amplified by the fact that he likes to talk. A lot.
His lackluster showings in both elections wasn’t due to his lack of expertise – but due to the fact that he is not a prolific fundraiser. His penchant for verbal gaffes will continue to be a concern. But clearly money is not a concern for the Obama camp, though we can be sure that his talking points will be monitored hourly.
So then, why Biden?
Senator Obama’s running mate had to be someone he could trust, so it was most likely that he would choose from two pools of people: those in the US Senate, and those who ran for president in 2008. In Obama’s Washington experience, these are the people that he knows best. Ultimately, he chose the only person on his “short list” who came from both areas.
Senator Biden is also a working man’s Senator. He’s savvy, but not overly polished. He’s eloquent in his speech, but he uses plain terminology and references in his speech.
These qualities, coupled with growing up in Delaware, which is basically one big port town, have given Biden credibility among white, blue-collar, rust-belt voters. He can connect with voters in Michigan and Ohio, and he already is known quantity in Pennsylvania (nearly all of Delaware is in the Philadelphia media market). Competitive advantage: check.
Biden is also a lot of things that Obama wants to be, or is but cannot be because of the persona that he’s built. Obama is the statesman, the front man, the legacy. Biden is the brawler, the guy who will roll up his sleeves and throw some punches. Biden subscribes to the notion that sometimes, in order to win a fight, you’ve got to pick a fight.
The two men are a lot alike. In many ways, Obama is a reflection of who Biden was when he was in his 40’s. They have the same fight in them. Together they make two parts of a whole and ultimately one of the strongest tickets Democrats have seen in more than a decade.
Edward Espinoza is a Superdelegate, representing California on the Democratic National Committee. He served as a field director for 2008 presidential candidate
Love this write up. Great look at our VP candidate.
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