As the mastermind Joe Biden hunkers down in his basement, sifting through the long list of impressive resumes for a VP pick, the candidates themselves exist in a state of suspended animation. For Joe, this is a dry run for the exercise of power which he will enjoy as President next January.
But for the moment it is the first reward of a hard-won primary campaign. It is also a reward for his shrewd and speedy decision, announced to the world with fanfare, that he would narrow his choice of VP to a female.
For the man who opened his campaign across the states with the bus-bedecked brilliant slogan “No Malarkey,” who ruthlessly destroyed his primary rivals in televised debates, and then cruised to victory as the next President-in-waiting, this is an interlude to be savored, not hurried. The candidates, the Party, the MSM – indeed the whole world – waits for his momentous decision. When finally announced on August 10th (or maybe postponed again to heighten the excitement), the MSM is ready to swoon at the brilliance of his final decision. Then comes the pleasure of carrot-dangling for places in his cabinet.
This is how it might all appear to the failing mind of a long-time career politician who has marveled at his own ability to stay at the top without much in the way of legislative accomplishments and scruples.
While the female candidates, the Party and the MSM wait for Joe’s decision, it is worth re-examining Joe’s final political performance and what it tells us.
The “No Malarkey” bus campaign was obviously his own idea. It is hard to believe that any professional political adviser or seasoned Washington Democrat strategist had anything to do with it. It tells us that Joe thinks he knows best and doesn’t seek advice.
His performance on the campaign trail and in the televised primary debates quickly dissipated his initial lead in the polls that he owed simply to name recognition. Kamala Harris took him apart as a racist – she must regret that attack and wish she could walk those words back! – and the results in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary indicated that his bid was over.
It was Joe’s good luck that the Democrat field was hugely fragmented, ideologically divided and so poor in personality appeal that Clyburn’s racial intervention in South Carolina not only put Joe back in the running, but coincided with the re-birth of Black agitation and ascendancy. The desperate Party elite and the equally desperate MSM prematurely seized on Joe as the answer to their problem of defeating Trump in November.
In doing so they overlooked Joe’s mental deterioration and his sorely mistaken confidence in his own judgment. This soon became apparent when he announced, as if on a whim, that his VP would be a woman. Only a mentally deteriorating seasoned politician would have made such an impulsive – and unnecessarily limiting – decision so early in the process.
Still, it was a move that could be sold as progressive and decisive, despite its obvious limitations. What the Party elite and the MSM did not anticipate was the new power and stridency of the racist activists. So now, it seems, Joe is not only limited to a woman VP but to a Black woman.
It looks like he will have to rule out Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth and several other White claimants. Even a brown skin may be too light to pass muster.
This leaves Val Demings (Florida), Karen Bass (California), Keisha Lance Bottoms (Atlanta), Susan Rice (National Security Adviser for Obama), Kamala Harris (California) and Stacey Abrams (Georgia).
Harris may not be Black enough to please many Black women rivals and voters, but she leaps out of the pack for her other attributes (which we won’t get into here).
It is possible that Joe’s delay in making a choice is simply due to the limitations of the field. Or it may be that he is too mentally muddled and cannot concentrate, or that by delaying his choice of running mate he is delaying the time for campaigning and for debates with Trump.
(Most of the MSM scribblers omit Abrams from the list of hopefuls, but she certainly sees herself as a prime candidate. She has good credentials. Just look at her impressive resume – and she is only 46! She would certainly bring in the Black vote and possibly Georgia, but she would not bring in the Latino vote. Will she get Joe’s carrot?)
The lesson we draw from all this is that a mentally deteriorating Joe, lacking insight and daily more uncoupled from reality and the Party hierarchy’s influence, may be unwilling to take advice or be controlled by others. There is no mechanism in American party politics that empowers a party elite or hidden forces to control a Presidential candidate who has won the nomination. The MSM and the elite will have to work flat out to sell Joe to voters, and the VP candidate may have to make the best of his unpredictable decisions and embarrassing gaffes.