| Vol. 3 No. 17 August 21, 2008 |
| Reflections/Jonathan Gramling Obama-Biden for U.S. |
| Transitions in Education Damon Williams, Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate |
| A couple of weeks ago, I was having a lively discussion with friends over who Barack Obama would select as his vice presidential running mate. Although I didn’t admit it at the time — wanting to appear highly knowledgeable in these matters — I blurted out the name of U.S. Joe Biden. There were others who were shocked by the suggestion and I felt like taking it back and not bothering to defend it. But I stuck with it just the same because of the foreign policy thing. I avidly watch the Sunday morning talk shows; I’ve done it for years. And I think one of the faces that has popped up the most is Sen. Joe Biden as the Sunday morning talking heads dissected and redissected the Iraq War. Biden was always at the ready to offer his observations and was actually pretty knowledgeable about foreign affairs and his answers were always pretty nuanced. Now that is the main reason I blurted out Biden’s name because I have always felt that Barack Obama was going to get hammered on the lack of experience in foreign affairs and the whole terrorism thing. Never mind that Barack spent part of his childhood in Indonesia and could probably bring a more global perspective to our foreign policy, they would still hammer him anyhow because he wasn’t a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War like McCain is. While Barack has the wisdom, he doesn’t have the experience. Just once, I would love to see the Republicans argue that a president without the lack of foreign affairs experience can be disastrous by pointing to the record of George W. Bush whose previous foreign affairs experience prior to winning — or stealing — the 2000 election was hobnobbing with oil producers like the Saudis. He didn’t have experience and I don’t see the Republicans publically kicking him to the curb or asking him to step down because he doesn’t know what he is doing. The Republicans don’t seem to have a problem with that. But Biden has plenty of experience and has visited just about all parts of the world and met with most world leaders. So Biden is a good pick from that point of view. And while Biden has been a member of the U.S. Senator for decades and appears to be an insider, you have to like the fact that he commutes home to Delaware every day. That’s right, he doesn’t live in Washington, D.C. And so every day, he hops back on the train and goes home to Delaware, several hundred miles away. So it just seems to me that Biden does have a life, that he knows the difference between Washington, D.C. and his hometown and must meet average Joes all the time on the train, at the terminal or maybe in restaurants or grocery stores. So you just have to like that about him. And then he’s Catholic and that has to help. The Republicans have been slicing away parts of the Democrat’s constituency for the past 28 years, ever since Ronald Reagan was elected. While they have no real intention on doing anything about it, the Republicans have always played the “abortion card” every four years in order to peal away part of the Catholic constituency that voted heavily Democratic since 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt was elected president. The Republicans knew that when they played the “abortion card” they could get many Catholics to vote against their own self-interest. And so the Catholic vote has become more Republican over the years. So with Biden on the ticket, maybe Catholics will realize that the Republicans have done nothing on the abortion issue and go with a ticket that features a Catholic. By the way, when was the last time that the Republicans nominated a Catholic presidential or vice presidential candidate? Like maybe never? And then there is the case for Biden because he comes from a solid working class background and grew up in all places, Pennsylvania, which is a hotly contested state in this presidential election. Perhaps Biden can appeal to all those working class Reagan Democrats who have been bamboozled by the Republicans all these years and voted for people who were eliminating their jobs, not creating them. So overall, I think Biden is a good choice. Yeah, he can talk too much at times and has criticized Barack in the past and called him inexperienced. But I am sure that Barack’s people conducted a focus group somewhere to see if Biden was attractive to key constituencies. And I’m sure the answer was yes. On to the convention and on to November 4. |