This is not candidate diary, as I still don't have a candidate, and the guy that it's about may not even still be a candidate by the time I get a chance to cast a primary vote.
I just needed to get this off my chest, and I'm hoping for a little insight into what is genuinely a mystery to me.
Today's New York Times The Caucus blog features a post on--are you ready for this?--Senator Joe Biden!! I was pleasantly surprised, because I really like Biden, and I'd like to see/hear more from him. It's been a great source of puzzlement (and frustration) to me why Biden's candidacy is virtually invisible in the media--I mean, with 35 years in the Senate and as prestigious chairmanships of both the Judicial and Foreign Relations Committees, he's hardly a fringe candidate.
I'm apparently not the only one puzzled by this, as the NYT's Matt Bai shares my befuddlement...
After attending a house party for Biden in Iowa, Matt Bai was prompted to write this:
One of the mysteries to me about this campaign season is why Mr. Biden hasn’t gotten more of a hearing. I know that elicits groans from a lot of Washington veterans... Insiders like to ridicule Biden’s propensity to bloviate without end. When Mr. Biden started out his presidential campaign with a nightmarish gaffe, describing Barack Obama as "clean" and "articulate," official Washington scoffed and moved on.
That was, without doubt, a horrible, cringe-inducing gaffe. I'm really not sure what point Biden was trying to make there, but does anyone really think that he meant it as a racial slur? Obama himself does not seem to have taken it that way. It did raise questions about whether Biden was capable of running a disciplined campaign and of appearing presidential, but as Bai continutes:
And yet, from that moment on, Mr. Biden has run a very good campaign. He has consistently scored high in the debates, where his obvious expertise in foreign policy have often made him appear to be a statesman among strivers, and he has demonstrated a surprising capacity for brevity.
Furthermore, in traveling around the state, the Times reporter has found that:
A lot of people in Iowa absolutely love Mr. Biden, going way back to his first presidential campaign in 1988. From just chatting with voters around the state, the guess here is that Mr. Biden would be a significant force in the upcoming caucuses if Iowans actually thought he could win. They never have.
And whose fault is that? The campaign's? The media's? Our lack of appetite for substance over sound bite?
I thought Bai had an interesting analysis:
Mr. Biden’s supporters will tell you that this is all the media’s fault for not covering him more — much the same argument you hear from Bill Richardson and Christopher Dodd’s supporters, too. This has some validity, but personally, I think Mr. Biden is less a victim of the media itself than of the distinct political culture that we in the media have wrought. Ten years of endless blather about the game of politics on cable TV have trained the most engaged American voters to handicap candidates rather than hear them, to pontificate about who might win rather than deciding whom they actually want to win.
Although some of the commenters on this article (and it's elicited quite a response, generating over 150 comments already) seemed to feel that Bai let the media--particularly the NYT--off the hook a little too easily here, I think he has a valid point. I tend to agree with what critics such as James Fallows (in his wonderful book "Breaking the News," based on this article) and Al Gore have said about how the focus on the horserace, rather than on discussing/analyzing issues and positions, is detrimental to the democratic process. As I've commented before, "frontrunners" are thus created before a single vote has been cast, and while most people are not even paying attention. When the public does eventually start paying attention, the candidates have already been pre-sorted for their convenience into "tiers" of who is "ahead" of whom, even though it is actual, you know, ELECTIONS that are supposed to decide these things. As Bai goes on:
Voters seem to approach politics increasingly as pundits, and they look to poll numbers to tell them who’s electable and who isn’t, never stopping to realize that they are the ones who get to decide.
As I mentioned, this phenomenon is nothing new, and has been criticized in the past. (Fallow's book was published over 10 years ago!) Yet what I don't understand, is why this same dynamic seems to be at work at the netroots level. The countless diaries here reporting, analyzing and debating every new poll are testimony to the obsession of not just the MSM, but the blogosphere, with the horserace. Aren't we supposed to be the ones truly engaged with the issues of the day--the folks who value the power of the people over the power of the MSM, the independent thinkers? And yet there is just as much fascination with polls here as in the MSM, and Biden is just as ignored. Even when he came out with his demand for a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA tapes scandal--I was sure that day I would (finally) see some buzz generated on the diary list, as this was exactly the kind of thing that my fellow Kossacks and I tend to get excited about--crickets. (A search has turned up one diary.)
Meanwhile, there seems quite a lot of ignorance at the netroots level about Biden. There was recently a diary here (since deleted, but also cross-posted at other sites, where it remains) stating falsely that Edwards was the only candidate who cared about domestic violence, and whose website discussed it. The diarist referenced a post at another, feminist blog on this theme. How such a claim could be made in an election that includes Senator Biden, the author of the Violence Against Women Act, is beyond me. I mean, come on! (To use a Joe-ism.) He didn't just vote for it, or co-sponsor it, he wrote the damn thing. And furthermore, he has said many times the following statement, featured prominently on his campaign website (which has a whole issue section titled Empowering Women to Take Charge :
"What I'm most proud of in my entire career is the Violence Against Women Act. It showed we can change people's lives, but the change is always one person at a time. There are many more laws and attitudes that need changing so women are treated with equal opportunities at work, in the classroom, and in our health care system." – Senator Joe Biden
Then there's Iraq. As Bai says:
When he talks about Iraq, he does so with singular credibility in the Democratic field, because his son, Delaware’s attorney general, is soon to be deployed there, and as Mr. Biden puts it, "I don’t want my grandson to go, too."
Although I've thought Biden was funny and likable in every debate, what made me start considering him seriously as a choice for President was hearing his remarks on foreign policy--especially Iraq. Biden's deep understanding of complex subjects and his strong intellect really shine when he talks about these issues.
A turning point for me came during the NPR debate earlier this month. No disrespect to any of the other candidates intended, but Biden seemed to be in a class of his own during a lot of the discussion, much of which focused on foreign policy. The radio format let the more experienced, but less glamorous candidates like Dodd and Biden showcase their expertise--a writer at Salon called the NPR debate the Dodd and Biden show.
An intellectually intriguing moment in the debate came when four candidates were asked to enunciate the doctrine -- something akin to the Monroe Doctrine or Bush Doctrine -- that would define their foreign policies as president. Clinton took a predictable route as she discussed working through "multilateral organizations" and emphasizing "cooperation in our interdependent world." Edwards, who seemed thrown off stride by the question, groped his way toward vaguely suggesting that America's goal should be to demonstrate "that we respect people who have a different perspective than we do." Obama, after suggesting that the world is too complex for a one-size-fits-all doctrine, did go on to say, "We have to view our security in terms of a common security and a common prosperity with other peoples and other countries."
These answers were neither objectionable nor memorable. But Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was in his element, offering a big-picture answer. "We need a doctrine of prevention," he said. "The role of a great power is to prevent crises. And we don't have to imagine any of the crises. We know what's going to happen on Day One when you're president. You have Pakistan, Russia, China ... Afghanistan. You have Darfur. And it requires engagement and prevention."
Biden has a credible 5-point plan to end the war in Iraq which you can read about here and in more detail here . The plan has received widespread, bipartisan praise from politicians and foreign policy experts, and calls for major troop withdrawals beginning this summer. Yet in the blogosphere it seems to get more criticism than credit(prompting Biden's web site to devote a special section to addressing the critical comments posted on its site). Such criticisms include its not being a complete, instantaneous withdrawal (it would initially require keeping a very small residual force on the sidelines) and, unfairly, for "partitioning" Iraq, which as Barbara Boxer has pointed out (see first link above), is false.
Despite Biden's well-thought out and workable plan (based on the kind of federal arrangement advocated by former Iraq Defense Minister Ali Allawi, among others), many in the netroots flock to Ron Paul as the "only candidate who will end the war," a ridiculous assertion actually given credence by Digby, who today says:
Nobody on either side of the political aisle is speaking with any kind of clarity about ending the Iraq war other than Ron Paul, and about the Washington consensus on foreign policy in general.
Is that really a fair statement? I know Biden is not perfect, and I myself wrote him off as a serious option for a long time because of his support for the AUMF. But none of the candidates is perfect, and the more I've heard from him--on foreign policy (on which the editor of the Concord Monitor called Biden "the most experienced and perhaps wisest of all the presidential candidates") AND on plenty of domestic issues as well (including climate change and his advocacy for serious funding of Amtrak)--the better he is looking to me. There is actually a strong case to be made for him as a good progressive candidate. And, if veterans can support him despite his 2002 vote, I figure I can,too. (Although I will always regret that our Democrats in Congress didn't take a stand at that time.)
I still am not sure who I'll support in the primary, or if Biden will even be around when my turn comes. And honestly, ALL the Democratic candidates have policy positions that I agree with--each one has his/her own strengths that I admire. But it would be nice just to see Biden getting a little more of the credit he deserves on some of these issues, and his candidacy being treated seriously. After all, to repeat what Matt Bai wrote today, it is up to the voters to determine who the nominee will be, not the media, not polls.
(Although...even Bai ends his piece by stating that Biden is well-positioned for a cabinet post in the next administration! sigh)