Political conventions have been anticlimactic for decades and rarely more so than this particular Democratic National Convention. I stumbled across one characterization of from Marianne Williamson as like “binge-watching a Marriott commercial”.
I think different people have different reasons for supporting Joe Biden for president:
- He’s not Trump (IMO probably the most common reason)
- They long for a “return to normalcy”
- They’re restorationists, longing for a return to the policies of the Obama Administration
Maybe somewhere there’s a voter who genuinely believes that VP Biden is genuinely the best presidential candidate out there. Maybe there is but I doubt it. I also don’t believe that picking Kamala Harris as his running mate will garner a single vote from anyone who wouldn’t have voted for him anyway. If anything I suspect it may lose him a few votes. I might have voted for Joe Biden and the right running mate. I won’t vote for Biden-Harris (I also won’t vote for Trump). Keep in mind that Sen. Harris didn’t collect a single delegate and 90%+ of Democratic primary voters picked anybody else. Tulsi Gabbard did better than Sen. Harris did. I think the results of the primaries were actually pretty clear. Regular Democrats by and large voted for Biden. Progressives voted for Sanders or Warren. That pretty much sums it up.
In my view both VP Biden and Sen. Harris are what used to be called “Nixonian centrists”. They feel out where the center of the party is and head there. Their stances are somewhat different because Joe Biden represented Delaware while Kamala Harris represents California and the center looks different to you depending on where you’re looking from.
I think the best case scenario for a Biden presidency is that the administration of the federal government goes back to the autopilot status of being run by the permanent bureaucracy while there’s a futile attempt at restoring the status quo ante in foreign policy, the area in which presidents ostensibly have the most influence. The reason that that we won’t see a restoration of the policies of the Obama Administration is it ürür, kervan yürür (the dog barks but the caravan goes on). There will be no restoration of Chimerica or imagined trust by the Europeans. We have nothing to offer the Iranians any more. I will be very interested in seeing how the Biden pro-immigration policy is reconciled with double digit unemployment. Or whether the Obama trade policies can be resuscitated, especially in the context of increased leverage on the part of the progressives in his party and their general attitude towards trade.
I really can’t even consider Biden and his historically first Brahman VP until he clarifies his stance toward China and Chinese tech infiltration.
If he doesn’t reject china I’ll assume he’ll dance with the one who brung him.
“administration of the federal government goes back to the autopilot status”
Congress will have a say on that. If Biden wins, Democrats are likely to keep the House and take the Senate.
Obama gave his approbation is scraping the filibuster, and with Pelosi looking to write her legacy; I expect major partisan legislation.
Very little. They can increase or decrease the budget but changing the actual workings of the permanent bureaucracy is largely beyond the Congress’s power. For one thing they’d need to amend the Civil Service Code.
Biden just feels like the Bob Dole equivalent of a candidate. Both were fairly decent people who could work with the opposition. Not extremists. Both weren’t getting excited about. Dole would have given us a decent human being and not as sleazy as Clinton (OK that is a low bar) and Biden would give us a decent person and not as sleazy as Trump(an even lower bar). Likely gives us mainstream Dem policy and nothing radical. Progressive wing will be disappointed. They might need their own Tea Party, maybe the Wine and Cheese Party?
Steve
I think that’s a pretty apt analogy in the sense that it’s Biden’s turn. Where it fails is that Jack Kemp was Bob Dole’s running mate, a pretty good pick or, at least, one more likely to attract Democratic voters than Kamala Harris is likely to attract Republican voters. I also don’t see much evidence that Dole was a “Nixonian centrist”.