Vice President Joe Biden

A Joe Biden-Beto O’Rourke Ticket Might Be The Trick For The Democrats

Ronald 23 Comments

One of the scenarios that is being discussed, regarding the Democratic Party and the Presidential Election of 2020, is that former Vice President Joe Biden and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke might be the ticket to victory.

Biden remains in the lead in many public opinion polls, and has long been admired and loved by many Americans, including this blogger. Of course, in a career of 44 years in government, some of his initiatives, including a tough crime bill, making it more difficult to declare bankruptcy, and his conduct of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill Supreme Court hearings, undermine his appeal to many. Also, his tendency to talk too much, and in an embarrassing manner, also is not appealing to many.

On the other hand, his 36 years in the Senate, including chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee has made highly respected by many legal authorities and foreign policy specialists, as well as the leadership of many foreign nations.

Beto O’Rourke ran a very close race in Texas against Senator Ted Cruz, and has a very appealing personality, and has the added edge of looking as if he is related to the former Attorney General and US Senator Robert F. Kennedy, with whom he shares the same first and middle name. Even though he is not a Kennedy, he reminds many of the former Presidential contender who was assassinated in 1968.

However, O’Rourke has some youthful arrests that could dog him, and is seen by many as too moderate a Democrat, although one must realize he is from El Paso, Texas, not exactly a site of overly progressive heritage. Many might say he is a “Blue Dog” Democrat in his six years career in the House of Representatives, now ended.

So for Progressives who like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke seem too moderate and centrist, and it all comes down to whether a Sanders or a Warren could actually carry the nation, and make up for the shortcomings of Hillary Clinton in the Midwest and among white working class voters.

Biden being 78 at the time of the next inauguration is definitely a problem, but O’Rourke would be 48. It all comes down to selection of a running mate who Joe Biden would be compatible with, which in Joe’s case is not a big problem, because he gets along well with most people he has associated with, and has a record of “crossing the aisle” and working with Republicans, many of whom admire and praise him, even if they disagree on the issues.

A Potential Way For Democrats To Win White Working Class Vote Of Midwest And Pennsylvania In 2020: A Ticket Of Joe Biden And Sherrod Brown!

Ronald 2 Comments

Face the facts: The 2020 Presidential race has begun, as several politicians in both parties, and even Donald Trump, have started to appear in Iowa and or New Hampshire, the first caucus and first primary state respectively.

There is a myriad of potential candidates for the Democrats, but the thought comes to mind that the Democrats cannot afford to sacrifice the white working class of the Midwest and Pennsylvania, which were lost by Hillary Clinton by small margins in 2016.

And when one thinks about the wide variety of nominees, the thought that comes to mind, at least to this observer, is that a ticket that could win the vote that gave Donald Trump the victory in the Electoral College in 2016, is:

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN OF DELAWARE
SENATOR SHERROD BROWN OF OHIO

Biden and Brown, the KILLER BEES, were both under consideration in 2016, but Biden did not run due to the death of his son Beau Biden, and Brown was on a short list for Hillary Clinton, but Tim Kaine was selected instead.

Both Biden and Brown have made their careers to a great extent on the backing and support of the white working class, from which both came, and which both understand, and it is part of their “blood”, so to speak.

Brown must win his Senate seat in Ohio this November, but is favored, and has expressed interest before in higher office, and he has served two terms in the Senate, and 14 years before that in the House of Representatives, and also served as Ohio Secretary of State for eight years before coming to Congress. He also served in the Ohio legislature for eight years before that. So he has vast experience, being in elected office 42 of the past 44 years, since 1975

And of course, Joe Biden sought the Presidency in 1988 and 2008, and is superbly qualified for the White House with 36 years in the Senate and eight as the most active and involved Vice President in history, shared with Walter Mondale under President Jimmy Carter, having served a total of 44 years from 1973 to 2017.

When have we had two people on a national ticket, each with 44 years in office by 2020? NEVER, and both are solid progressives who care about the American people!

Both Brown and Biden are aggressive campaigners, and great orators, and would know how to take the fight to Donald Trump, Mike Pence, or any other Republican nominee for President.

Ohio is the crucial state in so many elections, and Brown could bring the whole Midwest and Pennsylvania to the Democrats, and Biden knows how to appeal to the struggling white working class.

Of course, many will say Joe Biden will be too old at age 78, and that Sherrod Brown at age 68 makes for an old ticket, and that no women or minorities or younger nominees would have the opportunity to be the nominees in a nation that is leaning toward a more diverse future. But Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, a community college professor, and Brown’s wife, Connie Schultz, a well respected journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2005, would also add to the campaign as future First Lady and Second Lady of the land. Schultz has focused on the underdog and underprivileged in her journalism career, and is now Professor of Journalism at Kent State University, after years of being a journalist at the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.

The first goal is to WIN the White House, and it is hard to argue against the idea that a Biden-Brown ticket could bring success.

President Obama: Please Listen To Vice President Biden On Afghanistan!

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In the midst of all the controversy over health care and other Obama Administration initiatives, the background struggle is going on over plans to increase substantially the number of US troops in Afghanistan, in a war which is starting to cause greater American casualties at a time when many NATO nations are planning withdrawal of their forces.

Vice President Joe Biden, an acknowledged expert on foreign policy, and formerly, for many years, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, has privately been spreading the word that Afghanistan is a war that will be going on for years with almost no chance of real success, and one that will eventually be fought primarily alone. Biden sees this as another Vietnam, which cost the country a lot of treasure in men and money, and divided the nation in a way that had not been seen since the Civil War. The cost is astronomical, at a point when the debt issue is a gigantic one, and we are being told that millions of Americans cannot be considered to be protected on health care.

Of course, it is obvious that the opposition Republicans will claim that Obama has “lost” Afghanistan, as they, sixty years ago, charged that President Truman “lost” China. Both charges are of course ridiculous, but if we want to discuss who has “lost” Afghanistan after eight long years of combat, it is George W. Bush, who took his “eye off the ball” from the beginning of the intervention in the Fall of 2001 by his obsession with Saddam Hussein, and the decision to wage a major, disastrous war in Iraq.

Some people complain that Joe Biden talks too much, which he does at times, but on this issue, foreign policy, I call upon President Obama to LISTEN to the man who better understands international affairs than any military man.

Instead of committing blood and treasure for an interminable period of many years, let’s follow George Will’s view that it is time to get out, and use intelligence and aerial bombing, rather than sacrifice the young men and women of the nation in an impossible, hellish country that NO ONE has been able, historically, to take over and control. And let’s also build up our intelligence capability and homeland security instead!