Joe Biden took questions at a CNN Town Hall. He looked competent. And moderate.
And appealing.
He didn't come across as an elitist or know-it-all jerk.
"Grow up here in Scranton. We're used to guys who look down their noses at us. If you didn't have a college degree, you must be stupid. Who the hell makes you think I have to have an Ivy League degree to be president? I really mean it. I get my back up!"
First of all, the elephant in the room: "Sleepy Joe." Trump, Republican ads, and Fox have had a drumbeat of messaging that Biden is senile. This has the corollary message that Joe is just a puppet for the job-killing radical woke socialist Democrats who will destroy America while Biden nods off.
I was watching for confirmation. No.
Joe Biden looked just fine. He didn't seem senile, weak, or confused. He is not a fast talking glib speaker. The story of his boyhood stutter helps us interpret what we see about his speech. He occasionally has trouble getting words out, especially the very first word or two of an answer. However, once started--for better or worse--he sounds like the cliche of the Irish politician. A talker.
People tend to see what they are told they will see. This is a mixed blessing for Biden. We are looking for frailty, and Republicans who dislike Biden will undoubtedly find confirmation, but they were never Biden voters anyway. Trump hugely oversold the Biden-senility idea. They said he was nearly brain dead, a vacant-eyed stroke victim. Against that standard, Biden looks great. He looks like a senior senator.
Had Trump prepared people to see a windbag who is disqualified for office because he will tell stories about past lessons, when circumstances demand a quick talker with bold new ideas, then he would have gotten confirmation. Trump sold the wrong product.
Joe Biden seemed politically moderate and safe. Joe Biden isn't far left. Trump ignores that Biden defeated the far left to win the nomination. On fracking in Pennsylvania, Biden says he is OK with it for now while we move toward renewables. On violent protests, Biden again said forcefully that violent behavior is wrong and people doing violence should be prosecuted, period. Biden was asked if he was trying to have everything both ways, friendly to the left but also comfortable to the middle. The question was posed as if this were wrong. Biden's answer was to do exactly as accused, saying both progressives and moderate were right, that we are in transition. Peacemaker.
It won't please inconsolable progressives, but Biden is good enough for Bernie; Biden isn't Trump. Biden is a Democrat who won't scare the political middle.
Joe Biden isn't an elitist snob. Trump and Fox have created and nurtured a populist mood of resentment over the implied insult offered by coastal elites and Democrats against White people, Christians, working people, rural people, and Republicans generally. They think you are deplorable! They think you are stupid! They don't respect you! They think you are racist!
The most important message built into the Biden presentation last night was that he was the son of a working guy from Scranton and he has respect for people he grew up with, and modest, hard working people everywhere. He said some people in DC think you had to graduate from an Ivy League college to be taken seriously. Well, I did not graduate from an Ivy League college, Biden said, and don't feel ashamed of that. (Trump transferred into Penn and got a degree.) "My dad busted his back, lost his job," Biden said, while Trump inherited and squandered a fortune. I am Scranton, not Park Avenue and there is nothing wrong with being who we are, Biden said.
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| "We are as good as anybody else." |
Here is a short clip: Click Here
Biden did what he does often, tell a story. He described himself as a brand new young Senator, having endured a tragic event of the auto accident death of his wife and daughter. I got angry, he said, after overhearing a speech by a senator that seemed to me to lack any compassion, and mentioned my indignation to a veteran senator, Mike Mansfield, a man of great integrity. He told me maybe I didn't understand the full story about that senator, that the man I was angry with had seen a troubled orphan boy and took him in and adopted him, an act of generosity and compassion. You never know the full story of others, Senator Mansfield told him, so don't judge harshly. Biden said he learned that important lesson, and was grateful.
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| CNN |
Biden softened his voice and said one should never publicly question another person's motives. Disagree with some actions, yes, but don't question motives. You never know what is truly in a man's heart. Once you question a person's motives you harden that person's heart and you can never find agreement with that person.
The story was well told, with embedded messages that draw a real contrast with Trump. Biden has empathy and respect for others, both high and low. Nobody is "deplorable." Biden communicates, too, his respect traditional authority and the wisdom embedded in institutions and past experience. Trump presents himself as the defender of Christianity, the flag, the National Anthem, but Biden does not concede that emotional ground. Biden is Catholic, he respects tradition and his elders. He has the humility to learn from them and remember the lessons for a lifetime.
One Town Hall does not make a successful campaign, but Biden showed that can present a powerful, appealing message. He came across as a good person, to my eye, but not a weak one. He passed the fundamental test: he could be president.
7 comments:
"Disagree with some actions, yes, but don't question motives."
What?
So, assume others have good intentions, despite evidence to the contrary?
Now, there's some off the charts whacked out neo-lib bull***t.
That's exactly how we ended up with Trump.
We'd still have slavery with that logic.
Yikes!
I watched some of the town hall. It was painfully contrived and dull, which means it met expectations.
Biden is 6 points ahead, a drop from last week. If this trend continues the election will be in the margin of error soon. Democrats are hinging their strategy on the pandemic, blaming Trump for it being out of control. This is a hard sell to independents and an impossible one to the dozen or so soft Republicans they are trying to court.
It's easily batted away: "Nothing more could be done"...
Woodward was played. Trump's stated motive was to "avoid panic", and it's verified by the most respected journalist in the country.
Right...let's not question that...
Biden's Town Hall meeting was perfect! A perfect forum for Biden's skills and talents. Questioning motives of Trump is a non-starter. That tactic has been tried and it leads down the path to conspiracy theories and second-guessing. In my mind it's a rephrase of "Trust but verify (by actions)!" Biden showed the best side of presidential leadership that we've missed with Trump. By Trumps actions alone he's demonstrated negligence and disregard for The Constitution he swore to protect and defend in his oath of office.
Interesting responses thus far that suggest a similar divide in the general populace. Will folks decide based on the temperament of the candidate or on policies (specifically "law and order" which we are all getting played on to avoid more important substantive issues...after all, the planet is on fire and melting and people ARE DYING without proper healthcare). Given that most Americans treat elections as a high school popularity contest, this will be a tight race.
In the past we have had a tradition of favoring the underdog (can Biden be our "Cool Hand Luke?") But, perhaps, that sentiment has given way to a more cynical cultural mindset by a people beaten down by the system (think Walter White in "Breaking Bad").
Will Biden's identification with the working class, that the Democrats abandoned under Clinton and failed to woo back under Obama, sell given that his father was one of them while he himself was not? Paybacks are tough; potentially tougher when you don't have the courage to own them and ask for forgiveness.
Andy Seles
Joe Biden, What an Embarrassment
Joe Biden was pitiful in the CNN town hall. He is pitiful in almost every public appearance. Politico and other liberal outlets say it was embarrassing how the preselected audience lobbed only softball questions at him.
Everything about Biden rehearsed. The clip you linked for us is a prime example. The question was simple: "Do you think you benefited from white privilege?" He gave a quick vague answer that "of course, for one I didn't have to go through everything that my Black brothers and sisters went through" and then-- end of white privilege discussion. Not another word about racial inequality, the abyssal health of blacks compared to whites, the staggering drop out rates, mass incarceration, etc. Instead, Biden pushed "play" on what they rehearsed him to say in response to almost any question about "background". He narrated his absurd story of white middle class grievance. He decried that people "looked down" on him because he did not attend an ivy league university and law school in the 1960s. (This has already led to renewed dredging up of his lies and fabrications about being a top student and professor). White privilege is how Biden got into the elite echelon of those mere 6% of Americans who earned doctorate or advanced degrees in the 1970s. Even today, whites and Asians earn 92% of all doctorate degrees.
Biden was too busy regurgitating his tale of white ivy league woe to think of this. Biden recounted the pain of people looking down on "suckers” from Scranton, which in the 1960s and 1970s had less than 5% black population, no Latinos, and rampant factory discrimination against blacks in the unions. Even now Scranton is less than 6% black. White privilege is being from a 90% white/Asian community with great blue collar and middle class jobs, and high schools without crime, blight and hunger. That virtually all-white privilege is Biden's background. But it was all lost on him. He had no memory or word for the suffering of blacks in blighted, crime ridden West Philadelphia while he lived his Leave it to Beaver life. He could not get over talking about his inferiority complex in being from all white Scranton. We were persecuted for not being “equivalent” with the white sophisticates from Philly and New York. Boo hoo hoo!
Click on the clip Peter gave us.
Even at the end of his canned answer, Biden was still unaware of what the question was, he just knew it sounded like the moment to spin a rehearsed yarn about his own white privilege in Scranton and Syracuse law school, but not to mention the hardships of black people.
Joe Biden is an embarrassment to our party, and he will only get worse.
Which party is that Thad? Does either major party really embrace coherent ideals that can gain a critical mass of electorate? I think not. It seems the country is made up of increasingly fractious special interest groups isolated in little bubbles of outrage against “the others”. The GOP is the same- the only difference is their cult leader and his propaganda machinery keeps his followers appropriately hoodwinked. I know you are smart and articulate. Perhaps you would post a guest blog of your vision of what a flourishing society looks like and the kind of governance it takes to achieve it and how such a vision or person could prevail in our big-moneyed-celebrity-led political moment.
Well said, John. I sometimes wonder what party Thad aligns with.
I love Thad's "righteous indignation;" we need more of that instead of the tip-toeing and calm words, bordering on acquiescence, that we get from politicians and pundits alike. "We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered…." Martin Luther King (Riverside Church speech, 1967)
Andy Seles
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