This is not a hit piece on Joe Biden. I don’t write hit-pieces. I will support Joe Biden with every fiber in my being if he wins the nomination. He is certainly far better than Donald Trump. Joe Biden showed tremendous character in keeping his family together and raising his boys after the tragic car accident while continuing to serve the country as a United States senator. He did serve as a public defender prior to his service in the senate. He wrote the Violence Against Women Act. He was a strong critic of the Iraq War after it started. He came to support marriage equality for LGBTQ earlier than President Obama. He supports the Green New Deal. He supports a public option. He was a good vice president and did a good job campaigning both in 2008 and 2012. Most of us probably remember that John McCain was reluctant to allow Sarah Palin to campaign by herself (and in truth she drew bigger crowds). our nominee for president had no such reservations regarding Joe Biden. He did not produce any major gaffes. He campaigned successfully as vice president both in 2008 and in 2012. The people who are saying that he can’t campaign successfully are not looking at the 2008 and 2012 campaigns when he ran as President Obama’s running mate. Since he could campaign through those long campaign seasons without major gaffes, he clearly can be a good and successful campaigner. He has a lot of experience in the senate and as vice president. The office of vice president gives somebody a far closer view to what being president entails than any governor or senator could have. Right below that, I would put secretary of state experience and then experience as a governor. One of the commenters was apparently unhappy that with all of the positive comments I made with Biden, I still hold him responsible for his mistakes. The only thing that will make this post interesting to that commenter is to only say positive things about Biden and not hold him accountable for his words and his record. After his bigotry has been revealed, in all candor, he did not deserve anything positive to be written about him at all. We learned a lot that was hidden beneath the surface about Joe Biden. We learned about his praise for a segregationist. We learned that he opposed integration. We learned that if bigots in local government opposed integration, he likewise opposed integration and supported separate but equal. We learned that he believes in states’ rights arguments to oppose the advancement of civil rights. We learned that he supported an amendment to the constitution banning integration . We learned that he held a bigoted worldview which denied the inequity between the races. This makes me regret saying anything positive about him at all because Biden supporters will not accept giving him credit for good things if you also give him blame for bad things he does. Bending over backwards to be fair to Biden clearly was not appreciated by Biden supporters and the recent revelations which were the subject of the diary do not merit any positive attention. The other stuff, the positive stuff above, was not really relevant to the topic of the diary. I only included it to show “balance” for those who love Biden so that they would have an easier time accepting the hard truth that Biden has a troubled record on civil rights and he is accountable for that record whether it is in recent speech or old speech or states’ rights arguments or support for constitutional amendments.
Most of Joe Biden’s campaign seems to revolve around being the most electable candidate. He believes he is the most electable for several reasons: (1) his head to head poll numbers against Trump are better than any other candidate’s (2) he is more moderate where most of the country is and (3) he can get votes in the Upper Midwest and Rust Belt that other candidates either can’t or would have a harder time getting.
I understand why he would think that he is most electable based upon a comparison of head to head poll numbers against Trump. They currently are better. However, this is not a reliable piece of evidence that he is relying upon. We have several candidates who are not as well known. Candidates who are not as well-known are not going to have as good head to head numbers as a candidate who is well-known at first. However, after they become better known, then those previously lesser known candidates may obtain better head to head polling numbers than the candidate who is most well-known. Moreover, people in the primary tend to be partisan and act like they will not vote for another primary candidate against the other party’s nominee. In the end, typically such voters come home.
It is fair, I think, to say that Joe Biden is more moderate. However, assuming that being more moderate will get you more votes is debatable. I think that it might be true if the policies that the more extreme candidates supported were not popular. I don’t believe that the major candidates are so far extreme that they can be ruled out as less “electable” . I include in this Senator Harris, Senator Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Governor Inslee. It might or might not be true of Senator Bernie Sanders primarily because of labels and characterizations of him more than policy considerations (ie he has been labeled a radical that even if his policies are good and popular (which they almost all are) — people will oppose him because of the label not the substance or the reality. This moderate idea heavily relies upon appealing to swing voters or independent voters. However, most voters who do not attach themselves to a party label are reliable voters for one party or the other. Very few voters are truly neutral. In a world of caged children and criminal presidents, the neutral are the uninformed and apathetic. Anybody who hasn’t decided whether they will vote or whose nominee they will support is uninformed. They almost certainly have a logically inconsistent worldview. Trying to appeal to and win such people is a fool’s errand. People who have retained the republican party brand and still consider themselves republicans are extremists who are, at the end of the day, going to vote for Donald Trump. This is going to be a base election because anybody who still calls himself or herself a republican is an extremist (anti-choice, pro caging children , bigot...). So, the question is who will bring out the most Democratic votes, that is who will bring out the most votes from those who are Democratic-leaning or Democratic voters.
Those who are the most active in promoting the party and fighting for our principles are activists, mostly progressive. Those who are more conservative or moderate are less likely to be active in phone banking, voter registration, canvassing … There are more progressives and semi-progressive Democrats than there are conservative Democrats. Conservative Democrats are more likely to vote for a fairly progressive candidate than progressives are likely to show up for a conservative Democratic nominee. In truth, we will lose more votes by nominating a moderate or conservative Democrat than by nominating a more progressive nominee. The votes lost by nominating Joe Biden instead of Senator Harris or Senator Warren are just those votes that we need to win the electoral college. We need the Obama coalition to show up, not just the Clinton coalition. President Obama ran as a pragmatic progressive and due to his opposition to the Iraq War was able to successfully carry the label. He inspired people not just with his incredible speaking, but also his policy views contrasted with McCain and Bush. Both Senator Harris and Senator Warren have policies and candidacies that will inspire the voters we need to show up to win the electoral college. People will be moved to vote when they believe that it will make a real difference and that difference is found in progressive policies.
Now, we come to this idea that he can win over the Upper Midwest voters and Rust Belt voters, voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and possibly Ohio / Iowa. This is pretty much the idea that we need to win the working class white men voters. That is a shrinking demographic. This primarily seems to be because white men are more conservative and tend to vote republican. This is pursuing a republican demographic. The people we need to show up in these states are those who voted for President Obama. We especially need people of color. Our 2018 midterms were powered by women. That argument seems to be misogynistic in assuming that we need to run a white man , especially a conservative white man, to win the White House. This is probably why we have so many less qualified white men running in our primary, people that are not well-known on the national stage and have less experience in the federal government. I am not including Governor Inslee or even Mayor Pete or Senator Bernie Sanders in this statement because each of has a rationale (Gov Inslee on his record and on climate change, Mayor Pete he’s proving his candidacy by his campaign success as well as military experience and education and intelligence, and Senator Bernie Sanders moved almost singlehandedly our party to a more progressive agenda and he is the original — so he has an argument). However, people like Tim Ryan and John Delaney … are running and their main rationale appears to be that they are conservative white men and that one must be a conservative white man to be electable or the most electable. Our base is people of color, especially women of color, and women generally. People of color and women are both under-represented in the federal government. Yet, these are the very people that power our party and create its success. We cannot rule them out automatically as less electable and still represent ourselves as their voice. Who better than a woman to speak to women’s issues and family issues and who better to lead the country than a woman considering the disasters we have had under men excluding our previous president who was black? We cannot accept this demand that we must run a white man. No, we need to run the best candidate who will bring out the most Democratic votes based upon running on our progressive platform.
Therefore, the basis of Biden’s view that he is the most electable is flawed. The best way to show that a candidate is the most electable is to run the campaign well and inspire your party’s voters to support you. To do that, you want to avoid antagonizing the base needlessly. Yet, when Biden praised segregationists, this is exactly what he did. Senator Harris’ question was not artificial. We know that because Senator Booker had the same concern and it is obvious why people of color would be hurt by that. The fact that both of these two black senators felt hurt and offended by his statements shows that he made a major misstep. Trump is famous for his refusal to apologize. Biden seems to have the same disease. If he had simply apologized, then we would not be here. Team Biden blaming black candidates for speaking up when he praises segregationists is incredibly inappropriate. Black people are not supposed to speak up when a member of their supposedly progressive party who is running for president praises segregationists ? That is offensive ! It is not a good look for Biden to blame them as candidates of color for expressing their hurt when he praises segregationists. If he does not praise the segregationists, Senator Booker does not ask for an apology and Senator Harris does not bring it up. Therefore, we should not have people here on Daily Kos trying to blame Senator Harris for Biden’s misstep. Moreover, since he did not apologize and instead doubled down and employed states’ rights arguments to justify his opposition to integration, then it put his racial history under a microscope.
So, what happens next ? Biden does not apologize and instead employs a states’ rights argument to justify opposition to integration. This is a defense of segregation. Many states in the South and numerous local communities specifically were not going to integrate unless they were forced to. If they are not forced to, then we continue to have separate but unequal education facilities. If they are not forced to, then we continue to have segregation. Integration is good for everybody. When we get to know each other, then we see that nobody is better and nobody is worse and we share so much in common. It is a deterrent to racism. It is best, of course, if integration takes place voluntarily, but if it does not, then we still need to insist upon integration. We know that inner city schools and schools that are primarily filled with students of color are often not recipients of the same quality of education that white children in affluent areas get. This continues the cycle that penalizes people for simply being born black. Better public schools lead to a better university leads to a better job with more money which leads to living in an area with better schools and having children attend those good schools. Worse public schools leads to a worse university or no university and a worse job which pays less and so they must reside in a worse area with worse schools. States’ rights arguments are the same exact arguments that were used to attempt to retain and defend slavery. It is the same argument that is used to oppose all civil rights advances That is why this really exploded. The Democratic candidate who is furthest ahead in the polls now to be our nominee is using the same type of argument against integration in 2019 that was used to defend and retain slavery. That is horribly offensive. Joe Biden has got to learn and understand that using states’ rights arguments like this is very offensive to our base, to African American voters.
Again, this led to further scrutiny of Biden’s record on this matter. We learned that he said :
“I do not buy the concept, popular in the ’60s, which said, ‘We have suppressed the black man for 300 years and the white man is now far ahead in the race for everything our society offers. In order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race,’” Biden told a Delaware-based weekly newspaper in 1975. “I don’t buy that.”
Racial inequity is evident in a tremendous amount of statistics. As I wrote elsewhere:
When local officials or governors oppose integration, then the federal government through the Department of Education must act. Forty thousand dollars per student is spent in affluent, predominantly white communities whereas only four thousand dollars per student is spent in inner city schools. Teacher retention is low and turnover is high in inner city schools. They often have worse resources, lower technology, and struggle to meet needs. We have a cycle here that must be broken: white children in affluent neighborhoods get great instruction from quality teachers and gain admittance into better universities and earn more money and marry and have children who go to great schools where those children get great instruction… Poor black children often go to struggling inner city schools with below average teachers who are new (due to low retention rates) and have less experience and are teaching subjects that they did not major in (only tested in). They receive a lower quality education and earn less money. They are less likely to be able to go to college or graduate from there. They earn less money. They marry and their children go to these same lower performing schools. These cycles persist. Black people and white people use marijuana at the same rates and yet black people are arrested far more often. African Americans have lower home ownership rates than whites. African Americans before the ACA were half as likely to have health insurance as white people. African Americans receive much stiffer penalties for the same crimes as white people and are far more likely to get the death penalty as white people. Black people are paid less for the same work as white people. We still have voter suppression and gerrymandering. Over and over again, social science statistics show that we are not even close to have a level playing field where people of color have the same opportunities as white people. Two thirds of this country’s history includes time when black people can lawfully be enslaved or denied the right to vote by Jim Crow laws. Black people are over-represented in our prisons. White men have been exclusively served as presidents except Barack Obama. White men are over-represented in the Congress.
In light of all of these facts, the statement by Biden is one of privileged ignorance. Biden, as a United States senator, stated that he supported an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to ban busing. He knows how highly we view our constitution and why we rarely add amendments because of the hallowed ground that we view the constitution rests upon. He also knows how hard it is to add an amendment to the constitution. Therefore, it is fair to say that he was a zealous opponent of busing or we might say a zealot in opposing integration. What has come out recently: (1) Biden’s praise of segregationists (2) Biden’s use of states’ rights arguments to oppose integration (3) the quote (4) his support for an amendment to the constitution to ban busing.
Those four things are enough to shake even loyal African American support from Biden. It has been asserted that because African Americans are hurt so much by discrimination and by this terrible bigoted president that they were pragmatic and were willing to overlook the defects that were known prior to these revelations and mistakes because he appeared to be the most electable. However, when a candidate makes a big unforced error and then compounds it, he no longer appears to be such a strong general election candidate. Furthermore, he is attacking their civil rights in an offensive manner. Moreover, he refuses to apologize. At the same time, Senator Harris looks like a more electable candidate because of her respectful yet strong questioning of Biden regarding this matter. This enables the electorate to see how she would perform against a different white man, Donald Trump.
A good way to judge the electability of a candidate is to examine how they run their campaign. Do they make gaffes ? If they make gaffes, are they serious ones ? If they make serious mistakes, can they apologize and right the ship ? Senator Warren was able to navigate these waters and move forward and raise her support. Senator Harris has largely avoided making serious gaffes. Joe Biden made a serious mistake and offended his base while doing it. He then worsened it. It is a serious mistake. He appears to be unable to apologize and right the ship. He, therefore, does not look like a very “electable” candidate anymore. He brought this upon himself by praising the segregationists and he worsened it by using a states’ rights argument instead of apologizing. Trying to blame black candidates for expressing their hurt when he praised segregationists and used states’ rights arguments to oppose integration is wrong and won’t help him right the ship. If he is truly the “most electable”, now he will have to prove it by righting the ship and running a much better campaign.