Biden as "Useful Contrarian" -- The Blogger's VP?

Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate didn't thrill me at first. As you'd expect of the liberal blogarazzi, I found sufficient reason to deem Biden worth my vote on the November ballot.

Saturday's New York Times gives me more reason to like Biden:

Top aides say it has become customary for Mr. Obama to solicit Mr. Biden’s opinion at the end of meetings. But his views by no means always carry the day. At one January meeting to discuss the budget, Mr. Biden railed that the government was in no fiscal shape to pursue a health care overhaul this year — to the dismay of many present and others who heard about it.

The vice president later backed off, but Mr. Obama — who disagreed strongly with the view — has come to see Mr. Biden as a useful contrarian in the course of decision-making.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said that "when there’s group-think going on, the vice president tends to push the envelope in the other direction" [Mark Leibovich, "Speaking Freely, Biden Finds Influential Role," New York Times, 2009.03.28].

The useful contrarian—my kind of role! Note that in the example cited here, Biden is arguing against a reform dear to my heart... yet I can respect him for being the voice of dissent in the room.

And how does the President feel about disagreement from his Number Two?

“There’s, I think, an institutional barrier sometimes to truth-telling in front of the president,” Mr. Obama said. “Joe is very good about sometimes articulating what’s on other people’s minds, or things that they’ve said in private conversations that people have been less willing to say in public. Joe, in that sense, can help stir the pot” [Leibovich, 2009.03.28].

Stirring the pot, questioning the boss: that's my kind of loyalty.

Biden to End VP "Shadow Govt" -- Obama More Alpha Than Ever

When you absolutely, positively have to have smaller government, call the Democrats—specifically, Joe Biden:

Joe Biden is laying plans to significantly shrink the role of the vice presidency in Barack Obama’s White House, according to an official familiar with his thinking.

It’s not just that Biden won’t sit in on Senate Democrats’ weekly caucus meetings – a privilege Republicans afforded outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney. He won’t have an office outside the House floor, as House Speaker Dennis Hastert gave Cheney early on.

Biden will not begin every day with his own intelligence briefing before sitting in on the president’s. He will not always be the last person Obama speaks to before making a decision.

He also will not, as a transition official calls it, operate a “shadow government” within an Obama administration [Carol E. Lee, "Biden to Shrink VP Role—Big Time," Politico.com, 2008.12.14].

O.K., it's not much smaller government, but we'll know exactly who's in charge. I told you Obama was the Alpha Male.

Socialism: Not a Voting Issue

I've said it before, I'll say it again: We are all socialists. We are all redistributionists. We all believe in sharing the wealth.

If you still don't believe that, if you believe that you can't vote for anyone who espouses tax policies that it comforts you to call socialism, well, you can't use that belief to choose McCain-Palin over Obama-Biden. McCain and Palin both believe in taxing the rich and redistributing wealth, just like those other guys.

Hendrik Hertzberg highlights the sheer nuttiness of the McCain-Palin adoption of "Socialism!" as the last-gasp battle cry of the 2008 campaign by pointing to the words and deeds of McCain and Palin themselves:

During the 2000 campaign, on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” a young woman asked [McCain] why her father, a doctor, should be “penalized” by being “in a huge tax bracket.” McCain replied that “wealthy people can afford more” and that “the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don’t pay nearly as much as you think they do.” The exchange continued:

YOUNG WOMAN: Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism and stuff?. . .
MCCAIN: Here’s what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.

And as for Palin...

Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs” [emphasis mine; Hendrik Hertzberg, "Like, Socialism," The New Yorker, 2008.11.03].

As I've said before, a voting issue is "a fact, policy, or moral position (or a set of several such things) that distinguishes one candidate or position from another and thus can justify, singly or in concert with other issues, voting for one candidate or position over the other." Sharing the wealth is simply not a voting issue. At every turn—experience; guns; impressive oratory; palling around with bad dudes, whacky pastors, and folks who hate America; and now socialism—McCain and Palin have negated even the silliest arguments they could make against Obama and Biden by their own beliefs and policies. There is no honest reason left in the GOP rhetorical ammo bag to vote for McCain-Palin over Obama-Biden.

Biden: Authentic.

Joe Biden: Yeah, he can talk policy. He can also talk heart.



That's real manhood. That's real.

Joe, you've got my respect, and you've got my vote.

Down with Higher Education...

...it keeps me from watching politics!

Just so you know, I'm not commenting on the vice-presidential debate yet because I didn't get to watch it! Arrgghh! We had class last night. At our previous meeting, the prof managed to wrap it up by 8 p.m. (ah, efficiency!). Last night, we went until 10 p.m.

I could catch up watching Biden-Palin snippets on YouTube, but I'm a holistic kind of guy: I like to see the whole show, from beginning to end, without interruption, so I can get a feel for the total ebb and flow, how answers built on answers (or didn't), what patterns the candidates followed.

For now, I'll read the transcript, maybe comment later, if there's anything new left to say about the event.

But I do already have one rhetorical knot for my readers to unwind for me: if we need to deal with climate change impacts and clean up our planet, and if we should cap carbon emissions in that effort, how does it make sense to pursue an "all of the above" approach, where "the above" includes increasing production of the very fossil fuels that exacerbate climate change and dirty the planet?

Biden: The Feminist Choice

We know Obama's got feminist chops. So does Biden, according to a substantial article in The New Republic. Biden, says author Fred Strebeigh, "has some of the best feminist bona fides around." In fighting for civil rights for women through the Violence Against Women Act, Biden has proven his willingness "to trust the guidance of women activists and women judges, and then to contend against fierce and mostly male resistance in Washington, particularly from the Supreme Court."

Perhaps most importantly, he appears to grasp the fundamental inequality that women still experience in our society:

Biden, in the meantime, held a second Senate hearing on violence against women in August 1990. As he listened to a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (where his son Beau was still a senior) talk about efforts to help victims of acquaintance rape, Biden became energized. After hearing the woman say that some male students had harassed her with "nightly phone threats," Biden launched into what Goldfarb believed was an unplanned but revealing narrative. He told of trying to convince his wife Jill, who drove to night school for her graduate degree classes, to park in a place that was safer but illegal. In response, he said he got "almost a punch in the nose." Trying to work out why, he spoke of his wife's "frustration and anger" that she should need to take precautions no man would take. He linked her anger to her sense of "lost control."

Goldfarb felt she was hearing a man grasp a fundamental understanding about "the lack of control that is experienced not only by women who are themselves victims, but by all the women who have to constrain their daily activities to avoid becoming a victim." Biden was expressing, she thought, the "basic insight of the civil rights provision--that violence against women deprives women of equality."

Biden, too, portrayed himself as a man surprised by new knowledge. In Delaware, he found that victims of rape were beginning to "literally stop me in the street" to tell their stories and give thanks for VAWA. More than half, he said, spoke of a "need to regain control," which Biden evidently understood. The loss of safety, home, and control that he had felt himself when he lost his first wife and daughter was something that these women had also been forced to grapple with in the wake of their rapes [Fred Strebeigh, "Ladies' Man," The New Republic, 2008.09.24].

Biden gets it, politically and personally.

Illinois and Delaware Subsidize Arizona and Alaska

...and South Dakota!

Michael Kinsley puts "Sarah Palin's Alaskanomics" (not to mention the GOP's insidious reverse snobbery) in perspective:

Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 21/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it [Michael Kinsley, "Sarah Palin's Alaskanomics," Time.com, 2008.09.09].

The numbers from The Tax Foundation: In the last three decades, Alaska has taken more money from the federal government than it has contributed in all but four years (1982–1985). In this decade, Alaska has seen a return of about $7 in federal spending for every $4 in federal tax paid.

Senator McCain's home state of Arizona has seen similar largesse from Washington: in every year since 1981, Arizona has taken more federal dollars than it has paid (though at a smaller ratio than Alaska, recently about $6 in for every $5 out).

Where do those extra dollars come from? Other states, like Illinois and Delaware. Since 1981, Illinois has never seen better than a 4:5 return on the federal taxes it pays. Obama's home state has always been in the bottom five of states in federal spending received per dollar of tax paid. Delaware ranks right alongside Illinois on that ratio, consistently paying more than it gets back from Washington.

And the local perspective: South Dakota has ranked in the top 10 in the federal spending–tax ratio in all but five years since 1981. In 2005, we got $1.53 back from Washington for every $1 we paid. Thanks, Minnesota (federal spending–tax ratio in 2005: $0.72).

So who has the entitlement mentality here, Republicans or Democrats? The Dems obviously believe in paying their way and then some, while the Republicans think money comes magically from tax cuts and doublespeak.

Biden.

In this morning's blog headlines, Rosenthal exclaims, Powers questions, I shrug.

For one brief shining hopeful moment, I thought maybe the delay in Obama's VP announcement yesterday was a result of some staffer reading the Madville Times, slapping his forehead, and shouting "Herseth! Why didn't we think of that?!"

Yes, I'm a dreamer... and that's just the problem. I want politicians who inspire us, who challenge the status quo, who defy expectations and exhort us to do the same. At the very least, I'd like my politics to have a little drama, a little surprise.

Instead, I get Biden. An insider. A pragmatist. Another Senator. An old white guy. A pick that shows a lack of confidence in the message of real change. A guy who voted for the Iraq war, just like Clinton and McCain (have fun selling that one to the kids who got all excited in the primary season).

I know, I know: if it's difference I want, I already have a Kenyan-Kansan who'll give the rednecks among us a wonderful four to eight years of re-education. And campaigns are about winning, not about dreams or philosophy. If I were Obama, I'd have said, "Darn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" and picked Dennis Kucinich as my running mate. Now that would be Change... and that would be why I'll never be President (of the United States or the school board!).

I understand you don't pick a VP to ignite a revolution; you pick someone you can work with who shares your goals for the country. I'll read up on Biden; I'll find out he's fine. He's realized his vote for No Child Left Behind was a mistake; he opposes drilling in ANWR; he supports Roe v. Wade; he's got foreign policy chops... hey! He even voted to strike telecom immunity from this summer's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance bill, and when that effort failed, voted against the full bill (unlike his running mate)! Good man!

Politics isn't drama. It's getting things done for the good of the nation. And the policies promoted by the Obama-Biden ticket will do more good for the country than those promoted by McCain-TBA.

But at this moment, I can't help feeling disappointed in Obama's choice of Biden. The mass text message announcement was clever PR, but instead of shaking folks' cell phones with the announcement, Obama could have shaken up the status quo with a bolder, less conventional VP choice.

Update 10:45 CDT: For the perspective from someone usually on the other side of the aisle from me, see NYTimes's David Brooks, who says Biden is exactly the VP Obama needs.