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Obama / Biden 2008 or is it 1988 all over again?

Posted by TONY CAMPBELL, Columnist in At TMV, Politics.
Aug 20th, 2008 | Comments

Are you kidding me? Is this the fourth installment of the “Back to the Future” movie franchise? How did Joe Biden get into the picture to be tapped by Barack Obama for V.P.? Over the last forty-eight hours, I have read dozens of stories of how Biden’s foreign policy experience will help Barack Obama overcome the national security deficit he faces against John McCain. The point is not without merit but in the rush to protect Obama’s flank, the cure is worse than the disease. Simply put, Joe Biden will not help Barack Obama win in November. In fact, if one takes a look at recent presidential history, the choice of Biden will ensure Obama’s defeat.

How? Does anyone remember 1988? Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee with little to no foreign policy experience picked Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate. Bentsen, elected to the U.S. Senate in 1970, had won re-election two times and had run unsuccessfully for the Presidency in 1976. The Dukakis / Bentsen ticket only won 111 electoral votes and even lost Bentsen’s home state of Texas.

Obama’s consideration of Joe Biden is questionable, at best. His home state, Delaware, is solidly in Obama’s electoral column as well as most of the northeastern and middle Atlantic states. The geographic and electoral arguments for Biden’s inclusion on the ticket do not make any practical sense, so the only reason for the nod would be for his experience. Unfortunately, there is just one problem; Joe Biden’s sub-par experience as a presidential candidate.

In 1988, Joe Biden made his first run for the Presidency and dropped out of the race before any of the primaries because of a speech that was thought to be plagiarized from a British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. In 2008, Joe Biden was a candidate for the Democratic nomination this year but won less than 2% of the votes in the Iowa caucuses. In my opinion, the choice of Joe Biden will be as disastrous for Barack Obama as Lloyd Bentsen was for Michael Dukakis. Joe Biden is running for re-election to the United States Senate, and therefore, has nothing to lose. It is a win-win for Joe Biden; he is assured of re-election to the U.S. Senate from Delaware or he can become the 47th Vice-President of the United States. Lloyd Bentsen did the same thing in 1988…that did not work out so well for Michael Dukakis.

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D. E.Rodriguez

Lloyd Bentsen is no Joe Biden.

Joe Biden has dearly paid for the plagiarism incident. If that's the worst dirt Republicans can throw at him, we'll take our chances--Joe Biden will throw the mud right back at them, twice as hard.

el_loco1965

Bentsen sinking Dukakis? What the heck are you talking about? Lloyd Bentsen didn't hurt Dukakis, but he didn't help him either. Besides, the reason he didn't carry Texas was that George H. W. Bush, who was running for President - not VP - was also from Texas.

Are you also forgetting Willie Horton? And that brutal, below-the-belt death penalty question from Bernard Shaw - and Dukakis dumbfounding answer? And the photo-op of Dukakis riding a tank? Fair or not, all these things helped define Dukakis in a very unflattering light.

Also keep in mind that Biden would be running for VP, not President, so his success as a presidential candidate is neither here nor there. The role of the VP candidate in a campaign is substantially different from that of the Presidential candidate.

Is Biden the perfect candidate? No. But if this is the pick, Obama could definitely do much worse.

Personally, I think the best candidate would be Clinton. If you're going to pick an inside-the-beltway type, why not go with someone who can deliver a substantial number of voters too? But it won't happen.

Don't forget that Al Gore didn't do so well either in '88.

kritt11

I agree with the others- Dukakis sunk Dukakis. He had no charisma and did not hit back hard enough after the Bush campaign smeared him with Willie Horton. Bentsen was a more attractive candidate than Dukakis and performed well in debates against the less intellectually endowed Dan Quale.

kritt11

Biden would shore up the Obama campaign in the realm of experience and national security cred, the candidate's chief weaknesses.

joep

With all due respect, I am really tired of people relying on a campaign that happened 20 years ago and picking a couple of convenient facts to conclude that the exact result will occur again. Other comments have already raised salient differences between 2008 and 1988. Dukakis was dull, Obama has presence. Dukakis was a governer with NO international experience, Obama is a US Senator with some experience, Dukakis was not leading a movement, Obama has a huge following that fervently supports him. In addition, Obama has the money Dukakis does not have. Obama is running in an environment where the international threat is a bunch of thugs holed up in Pakistan who need to be taken out while Dukakis faced the perceived threat of the Red Bear with shared Nuclear annihilation.

Biden knows international threats and can shoot down ridiculous responses raised by any surrogate that McCain can throw at him. The greatest use of a VP candidate in an election is as the attack dog surrogate while the Presidenial candidate stays above the fray. If there is one attack dog I could point to in the Democratic party that will fill that role, it is Joe Biden. He will call an attack what it is, will pull no punches and will be unapologetic about it.

Selecting a VP candidate to win a particular state is over rated, other than LBJ winning Texas for Kennedy in 1960, point to one state where that strategy has made a difference.

The Obama brand has already cornered the market on people who genuinely want change. McCain is trying to poach that market based on his being the "original maverick". Unfortunately for him there is too much recent history to show that it is nothing more than spin. What is holding Obama back is the concern that he does not have the bona fide skills to address international problems. Biden solves that problem. More importantly, he would fill the role as the attack dog that Obama is uncomfortable with doing.

DLS

"Dukakis was not leading a movement, Obama has a huge following that fervently supports him."

And Dukakis was a Massachusetts liberal, just like someone else who had no huge following -- Kerry.

Obama has come out of nowhere to be taken very seriously. I believe, and I believe most believe, that Obama is the favored candidate this year, whereas McCain is a contemporary copy of Bob Dole.

And,

"The Obama brand has already cornered the market on people who genuinely want change. McCain is trying to poach that market based on his being the 'original maverick'."

McCain does this at the expense of his many, often-defied fellow Republicans and at the expense of the rest of us who are non-liberal or conservative and see too often with McCain a Dem Lite, or someone being deliberately controversial to "his own" [sic] merely to get attention for himself.

Notice that a lot of criticism by libs and Dems at this very moment of Joe Lieberman is (likely often unwittingly) the same as what has been said for ages already about McCain. In that eerie way, Lieberman is the perfect VP choice for McCain, but I doubt it will change McCain's prospects for election this year at all. (McCain needs a token true conservative or even one who Just Says So like Romney for VP in order to do better.)

jeff327327

Good choice UH-bama. ALL ABOARD! The Stop Obama Express. A great site for Anti-Obama Fun, videos, pictures, quotes and more. Check it out at www.StopObamaExpress.com

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