His Excellency simply entered the race too late to get any traction himself, but he is one of a few candidates I would like to see try again. Today I received the following email from him:
Friends,
This is a moment of profound consequence in America. At a time when our democracy is at risk, our economy is not working for many Americans, and our role in the world is unsteady, America needs a unifying and experienced leader, who can and wants to make life better for everyone everywhere. Joe Biden is that leader. I am today proud to endorse him for the Democratic nomination for President.
As Governor of Massachusetts, I worked closely with President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden. I saw firsthand Joe’s essential role in passing historic health care reform, saving the American auto industry and our country from another depression, leading our troops home from war, and championing historic civil rights and LGBTQ equality. He was my go-to contact on stimulus spending, the very spending that enabled us to invest in our schools, help our students achieve nation-leading academic performance, and close achievement gaps. And his and the President’s relationships with other leaders around the world paved a smoother way for our own state-level trade missions on behalf of business leaders, workers and educators.
Joe Biden has been a partner of mine for many years. He chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation process when I was nominated to head the Civil Rights Division in the U.S. Justice Department in the Clinton administration. When Black churches and synagogues were set on fire across the South in the 1990s, and I was tasked by President Clinton to co-chair the federal Church Arson Task Force to investigate and prosecute those attacks, Joe promptly and effectively moved legislation through the Senate to provide emergency funding for our work. I worked with him and his team on judicial appointments when I was a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. I have known him to be a champion for vulnerable and marginalized Americans for a long time.
Above all, I know Joe Biden to be a deeply empathetic man. His interest in and interactions with people, as well as his own experience with personal suffering and setbacks, and his faith, have combined to make him a genuinely caring and compassionate person. He brings those sensibilities to his work. But I can tell from the many stories I hear about him that are not a part of a legislative or foreign policy achievement, the ones from people who have encountered him on the train home from Washington to Delaware, that he sees the unseen and hears the unheard – and that sincere concern for others informs not just the kind of work he does but the kind of man he is.
At a time when the cheery economic indicators don’t tell the whole story about the struggles of everyday people, when the world lurches from emergency to emergency without America’s influence or leadership, when Republican leadership wants to take health care away, abandon public education, and ignore a climate crisis, and when our current president seeks to create chaos and division instead of order and unity, Joe knows that the times and challenges before us demand new ideas and bold actions. But he also knows that change that lasts will require us to turn to each other rather than on each other, and that we will have to model a politics that says we don’t have to agree on everything before we work together on anything. Joe is that leader and with his leadership we can win the White House, as well as majorities in the House and the Senate, and get going on with the work of making America prosperous and just for all Americans everywhere.
Ever Forward,
DLP
Who?
Patrick thought Paul Kirk and Mo Cowan would be good Senators, and he thinks Biden would be a good President. I see a pattern.
Do you have an objection to Senators Kirk and Cowan? They were placeholders who could neither build stellar records nor do much harm.
Placeholders is right. Both were appointed at critical times for the ACA. Mike Dukakis and Barney Frank were strongly rumored to want these appointments, and both would have been more effective advocates.
As Jimmy Carter put it–why not the best?
I would have preferred both of those too, but I got the sense Patrick was looking specifically for low-key people who would not distract from the race to permanently fill the seats.
So you see the pattern, too.
Biden may be low-key in some respects, possibly just what the doctor ordered following the chaos of 45, but he’s also a strong leader.
Two Biden jobs for which Patrick would be especially suited:
1) Veep—Patrick is a moderate with the gift of being able to speak to progressives.
By contrast, an Amy Klobachar would be a big FU to the activist wing.
I am not saying Biden “needs” to hold the party together—I think he wins in any case—but he should.
2) SCOTUS.
I’m not sure if Patrick has that gift anymore. His tenure here has been criticized by progressives because he ran an austerity minded administration focused on neoliberal solutions like corporate subsidies, gentrification promotion, legalized gambling, and charter schools.
It was compounded by his lackluster second term, his embrace of corporate consulting as his post-politics career, and his lobbying for the Boston 2024 boondoggle. I think the lack of progressive enthusiasm for Booker, Harris, and Buttigieg shows the limits of replicating the Obama strategy of wedding progressive poetry to centrist prose.*
*Stacey Abrams is a master at doing this and could be a very strong choice for Veep. Castro too.
I’d prefer either to Patrick. I guess I should have said, “Channeling my inner Joe Biden…” for no 1.
Abrams will never happen though. And compare resumes; a former governor versus a former…state rep?
Agreed. There is absolutely nothing progressive about Kamala Harris or Pete Buttigieg. The former shows that skin color is no indicator of values. The latter shows the same about gender preference.
To me, each exemplifies why identity politics, as in vote for fill-in-the-blank because he or she is a member of some designated minority, is so counter-productive.
Nothing progressive? – surely you jest!
Kamala Harris: populist leaning liberal
Pete Buttigieg: libertarian-leaning progressive
Both firmly in the Left-Liberal segment of the political plane per the above links.
I’m just telling you what I saw in the debates. I haven’t researched either candidate beyond that.
More like center-left. I would say Warren is more like a left-liberal where Sanders is just left.
Kamala Harris at one point received the interest of sex workers who were conflicted about her previous work that hurt them by going after Back Page, but who during the presidential campaign, floated the idea that she was considering advocating for the decriminalization of sex work.
But, sure, “there is absolutely nothing progressive about Kamala Harris” as it would be “so counter-productive” to vote for that woman who “is a member of some designated minority.”…
@… that woman who “is a member…”:
As is so often the case in your commentary, you misquoted me. You did so by leaving out the most important word in my comment … because.
I suggest that if Kamala Harris was a white man saying the same things, nobody would give that man the time of day. The Kamala Harris that I saw on that debate stage was not progressive. Did Ms. Harris say anything about decriminalizing sex workers on any of the debate stages? I heard her say a LOT about experience as a prosecutor. I didn’t hear her make any admissions that she may have been too eager to jail people.
What I did hear was her heart-warming story about being a little girl on a schoolbus in a program that Mr. Biden opposed — and omitting the fact that the Oakland CA schoolbus in question was part of a VOLUNTARY busing program that Mr. Biden in fact explicitly cited in his misguided effort to oppose forced school busing.
Ms. Harris strikes me as yet another opportunistic snake eager to do whatever it takes to advance her own political interests. I find nothing progressive about that at all — no matter what gender, race, or other identity she claims.
FWIW, she also just endorsed Joe Biden.
Of course she did. Amy Klobuchar leveled devastating and harsh attacks at Mr. Biden during the debates and campaign. Now she enthusiastically supports him.
This is what politicians DO. Anybody who has ever been in a courtroom during a contentious divorce or civil matter has seen lawyers do the same. While arguing before the judge and/or jury, the “esteemed brother” (or sister) is a scurrilous liar who will stoop at nothing — NOTHING, I tell you — to advance the corrupt interests of his obviously guilty client.
The moment the gavel ends the trial, the same two lawyers are laughing together on their way to share drinks at the local pub. It’s what lawyers DO.
I don’t know Kamala Harris. I won’t ever be asked to vote for her. She might well be sociable, warm, funny, and hilariously acerbic in person — as anybody who’s been around Barney Frank has experienced.
I only know what I heard and saw in the debates.
I’m glad she supports Mr. Biden. I think Mr. Biden is a better bet than Mr. Sanders in November. I don’t think Ms. Harris should be on a Joe Biden ticket.
I think she’d make a superb choice for Attorney General in a Joe Biden campaign. He’s said as much already, and I think she’d correctly view such an appointment as a major professional win.
Wow, yeah. I guess I’m out of the loop, as I never knew of a single person who upon seeing Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the race were ecstatic and thought that the progressive options had been expanded by the addition Deval Partrick.
You could have stopped at “being able to speak.” That alone would make him an asset to Biden.
We’re witnessing a trainwreck right now and no one seems to care. Joe Biden is not well and is not up to the task of making the case to win in November.
He spoke for 7 minutes today at his only public event. He needed a teleprompter. He still stumbled through it. His team has limited his events, limited his press interactions, and we’ve even seen staff literally walking Biden around by the arm. The non sequiturs, the rambling stories, forgetting things. It’s terrible. He is likely to win this based on years of goodwill and a party coalescing behind him. It is not because of his current strength as a campaigner.
Come the day after Florida, Biden could likely have sealed a plurality. And then it will just be him. People will then see his current state. It is going to be a disaster.
We’ll try to wave it away saying it is a right-wing smear or attacks against someone with a lifelong stutter. Where was the stutter in 2016? In 2008? Where was any evidence of a stutter in the thousands of hours of record of Biden’s 40 year career?
This isn’t a stutter.
We don’t have to do this . . .
How about knocking off this new favorite smear that misspeaking is evidence of anything other than the gaffes he is famous for? You are not a doctor, right?
They aren’t gaffes. We are ignoring them at our peril.
In 2 months our best defense will be “Trump is worse cognitively” and it will be too late.
There’s a lot more than Trump is worse cognitively, but not being a neurologist I’m not going to diagnose him either. You, OTOH, I’m happy to diagnose with Biden Derangement Syndrome. You seem to either like someone or hate them with a white hot passion that I can only muster for someone who has directly harmed me. You did the same to Clinton and it is simply not appropriate. A little bit of respect for pillars of our party would be nice even if not your first choice in a primary.
Of course Donald Trump is worse. Making that assertion isn’t going to change any votes, though. Voters who like Mr. Trump are going to point a finger at Mr. Biden and vice-versa.
As I wrote elsewhere, the question of whether or not Mr. Biden is, at 77, showing symptoms of cognitive dysfunction is perfectly legitimate. It is just as legitimate as doing the same for Mr. Trump or any other man or woman older than 65-70. Like it or not, such dysfunctions DO happen.
America cannot afford another senile President.
The fact that Joe Biden is famous for his “gaffes” does make me more likely to support him. In the context of a discussion about cognitive lapses, it suggests to me that they’re not a recent phenomenon. That isn’t encouraging.
I didn’t know about his battle with stuttering, and that does help me feel better about some of it.
I wish you the best of luck in telling Donald Trump and GOP to “knock it off” about “this latest smear”. It’s very clear that if Joe Biden is the nominee, we’re all going to be hearing about this and about Hunter Biden and “corruption” for the rest of the campaign.
I think this is tough issue, and it’s going to be tougher if it turns out to be based in fact. I hope for all our sake that it’s not, because I think he’s likely to be the nominee.
John Kerry’s candidacy was deeply wounded by the Swift Boat lies. The campaign was blindsided by it, and failed to respond in any effective way.
It’s pretty clear that the campaign’s response to the Hunter Biden accusations is to launch non-stop full-scale attacks on the Trump family — Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and others. That’s legitimate, especially because it’s actual corruption and it is funneling boatloads of money into the family bank accounts — something even the GOP doesn’t accuse Joe Biden of.
I certainly hope that every subpoena for Joe Biden is matched by counterparts for the children of Donald Trump and their spouses.
The Joe Biden campaign MUST come up with an effective response to the “cognitive disability” attacks — you know that Mr. Trump and the Trumpists will be MUCH more crude than that. “Knock it off” is not going to be enough.,
Thing is, I don’t expect anything less than thuggishness from Trump and his allies. I expect debate on our own side to be within the bounds of civility and reason.
Palm Beach Post, pResident Banana’s hometown newspaper, just endorsed Joe Biden citing the VP’s electability to beat both Sanders and tRump in the key battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida.
Expect IQ45’s tweet tantrum in … 3,2,1 🙂
There is nothing uncivil or unreasonable about having serious concerns about cognitive disabilities of a 77 year old candidate with a long history of “gaffes”.
That’s a legitimate concern for anybody who cares about the mental state of a sitting president. That makes the campaign a target-rich environment for every GOP candidate on the planet.
What is every Democratic candidate for ANY office going to say in response to allegations of cognitive disabilities of our 77 year old nominee? What is their GOP opposition going to say?
What will every voter in those districts hear? How do you think those voters will react?
It takes just one “gaffe” at the end of October and the entire effort is squandered.
How is anticipating their attacks and expecting our nominee to respond to them being uncivil or unreasonable though? That’s what I don’t get. This site should be a forum for debating the merits of our candidates and positions not a cheerleading squad.
Let me take this opportunity to point out that you and doubleman are a study in contrasts regarding how Sanders supporters behave. You HAVE largely remained civil and reasonable whereas he strikes me as confirming the worst stereotypes of Sanders supporters. Regarding this particular matter it is my strong view that nobody, with the possible exception of the incumbent, would put themselves through a grueling presidential campaign, especially one with a decent chance of being successful, unless they knew they were up to it health-wise. As a counterexample Sanders is the one who had a heart attack within the last year, yet apparently he feels, and so far the evidence confirms, that he remains up to this.
Appreciated Christopher. Also the really disingenuous and dishonest way many of them continue to attack and harass Warren and her supporters shows they are not really interested in uniting the party or winning the election.
AOC made a great point about reaching out to opponents with empathy while the Chapo and dirtbag crowd couldn’t wait to dig Warren’s grave and savage her supporters. The American left right now honestly feels like Life of Brian when they Judean Peoples Front hates the People’s Front of Judea more than they hate the Romans. I’m over this primary and just want to beat Trump.
Biden won’t cage kids. Biden won’t appoint anti-Roe and anti-gay justices. Biden will fight for $15 and fight for card check. Biden will fight for a public option and reverse Trump executives orders on refugees, climate, and immigration. Biden will streamline Title I loan forgiveness and put billions of extra dollars into our poorest, brownest, and neediest schools. He won’t go to war with Iran. He will appoint based on merit rather than loyalty and listen to the experts on Russia, corona, and climate. I mean look at the alternative and grow the f up. I’m still telling my friends in IL to vote their conscience, but we had our say and I’m already moving on to the general.
I join James in this.
I’ll be voting for Joe Biden in November. I can’t say the same for anybody else.
You are spending way to much time on twitter.
Actually I haven’t been on it since 2016
OK JC, I was being flip. But I do not believe that “many” Sanders supporters are now “harassing” Elizabeth Warren. How “many?”
This sounds to me like the latest gross generalization amplified via social media.
Don’t spread this news unless you are sure it is true. If it is true, think nonetheless about whether its importance outweighs the damage of spreading it.
This is exactly how we have empowered trolls, extremists, and bots. We will never be free of those but do not have to give them the time of day.
“Too much time on Twitter” was shorthand for that.
The obnoxious ones always make the whole bunch seem worse. It’s like when I substitute teach. Even when I leave school at the end of the day thinking boy that class was awful when I stop and think about each student individually I can only come up with a small handful out of 20-something students who were actually ill-behaved.
Great analogy. I think it’s 5% of Sanders supporters ruining it for the other 95%, but it does not help when the candidate goes on the podcasts of that 5% and puts them on his payroll.
I had a friend in the activist community in Chicago post on her Facebook account that she has been personally harassed for supporting Warren and the vitriol she got for being honest about that really upset me. The irony is she is now voting for Sanders in IL and was one of the people who helped convinced me to vote for him here. You win more friends with honey than vinegar, and from going after the union leaders in Las Vegas to printing outright lies about Warren’s record in Jacobin and Current Affairs does not help. I know Warren supporters who were expelled from DSA chapters. This isn’t how a movement expands-it’s how it contracts. That’s exactly why there was a ceiling on Sanders support Super Tuesday. Just one persons opinion, but it seems real enough to be a problem.
Indeed. Not at all. Everyone’s known for years that Biden is notorious for gaffes. This is a whole other level. It IS a serious concern, and centrists and various influential liberals in the media space are gaslighting about it and accusing everyone of launching a conspiracy theory about it.
This is extremely concerning, and those close to him, and all the assorted party hacks who are propping him up and pushing him towards the nomination ASAP are committing unpardonable acts. This is really effing serious.
I don’t know how anyone who is close to him could love this man and not try to stop this from happening.
This video from 2007 shows an extreme difference in his ability to process ideas, perform cognitively well, be fluid, clear, and witty.
The obvious difference between then (13 years ago) and now is undeniable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpPR4VPt47I
As well, in his interviews from 4 years ago, when he was giving his thoughts on the presidential race of 2016, you could as well see a difference from today.
We’re not talking about just stuttering or gaffes. We’re talking about a man having difficulty maintaining control of his cognitive faculties.
For those who disagree that this is concerning or that there’s a serious potential problem, our concerns could be very easily assuaged by presenting any footage of him whatsoever from over the past year where Biden approximated the same level of cogency he had in 2007 or even 2016.
People have been passing around this compilation from over the past few months, and we’ve all seen some of these already live or in the news, and wondering what’s going on inside him mind. IDK how TF we can deny that this is concerning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXvwumYE7_s
His vice presidential choice will be critical at allaying some of these concerns. It’s part of the reason I’m still rooting for Warren since she was the smartest and most competent leader on the debate stage and would be ready to step in on day 1. I get why Castro, Harris, or Abrams is a better choice politically and if we are betting on youth to allay concerns about age, but Warren is so sharp.
Interesting Rorschach thing happening with this post.