Senator Joe Biden as Vice President?

Senator Joe Biden of Delaware is being mentioned as a possible running mate for Barack Obama. On the surface Joe Biden would seem to be a good match. He's a 35-year Senator with a lot of Washington and foreign policy experience.

But below the surface, there is an awful lot of potential for trouble with Joe Biden as a Vice Presidential running mate. For one thing, Joe Biden is a moderate and more a supporter of the Iraq War than most Democrats, so his selection might alienate Barack Obama's liberal base. For another thing, Joe Biden is a walking, talking gaffe machine.

For example, when Joe Biden first ran for President in 1987, he was accused of plagiarizing a speech from then British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. The passage, used in a stump speech in Iowa, was captured on video and distributed to the media, along with video of Kinnock saying much the same thing, by operatives of then Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Biden's defense was that he had attributed the offending passage to Kinnock in all instances of speeches except the one that was captured on tape.

Joe Biden's second famous gaffe took place when he ran for a second time for President, in January 2007, when he said of Barack Obama, according to the Washington Post: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, I mean, that's a storybook, man." If Joe Biden were to be named Obama's running mate, look for that passage to be run very frequently on the news and in Youtube.

Senator Joe Biden has, in his time, been both chairman and ranking minority member of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In his role of chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee he presided over the contentious nomination hearings for both Robert Bork (who was rejected) and Clarence Thomas (who was approved) for Associate Justices of the Supreme Court. Both cases are considered examples of unfair treatment of conservative nominees by a liberal Senate.

Robert Bork's experience created a verb in the political lexicon, "to Bork", meaning to reject a nominee purely on political grounds, while smearing the man's character. The Clarence Thomas hearings were permeated with unedifying talk of pubic hair in coke cans, raw racial and gender politics, and the use of character assassination as a method to attempt to derail a Supreme Court nomination. Because of Biden's involvement in both of these hearings, his nomination may well energize conservatives even more against an Obama/Biden ticket.

Joe Biden may be better suited for the post of Secretary of State in a potential Obama Administration. The Democratic National Convention draws nigh and therefore we will know who gets the running mate position soon enough.

Source: Biden Stumbles at the Starting Gate, Dan Balz, Washington Post, February 1, 2007