It’s official, Obama has picked Joe Biden as his running mate for the ‘08 Democratic ticket. Which left us left to wonder: where there no other Democrats out there that Obama could have picked, one that would have been a tad bit more conservative and not so polarizing to the left, leaving moderates out in the cold?

It’s been exactly 20 years since Biden last ran for President in a race that saw the emergence of the negative ads scoring direct hits against candidates: Biden, who was exposed as a major plagiarist, and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who experts claim was done in by the “Willie Horton” attack ad.

Biden, who dropped out of the latest Presidential primaries after failing to develop any interest in his candidacy, proposed back in December that he would make sure Congress impeached President Bush and Vice-President Cheney if they bombed Iran without first getting permission:

“The president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran, and if he does, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, I will move to impeach,” said Biden, whose words were followed by a raucous applause from the local audience.”

The LA Times writes that the Obama camp believes the “36-year Senate veteran” woud “bring his extensive foreign policy experience” to the table, as well as “an impressive record of collaborating across party lines” and a “direct approach to getting the job done”. But he’ll also be bringing along a record of “lifting” other people’s lives, i.e. Neil Kinnock, the then sitting British Labor Party leader in 1988, plus some monkey business back in law school and “fits” of boasting” by Biden that he attempted to “explain away” to the New York Times in 1987. We found the link in a great read about Biden by Mickey Kaus in Slate.

There’s a bit of a backstory to Biden’s 1988 run for President in the Democrat primaries against the then Governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, whose campaign exposed Biden’s penchant for plagiarism in what was then considered a bit of “dirty politics”.

The Dukakis camp released a secret video exposing Biden as having “lifted” entire passages passages from a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock. The video was never released to the public but the press took hold and supplied the rest, digging up info that Biden had also plagiarized while in law school. Biden subsequently dropped out of the race.

Dukasis claimed it was his campaign manager, John Sasso, and political director, Paul Tully, who were the culprits and fired them. Yet it was another “attack” video that many claim led to Dukakis’ eventual defeat by George Herbert Walker Bush in the same 1988 race for President.

While some claim the negative “Willie Horton” ad was what undermined Dukakis’ candidacy it may have been Dukakis himself, who’s own style may have contributed to Bush’s defeat. Dukakis came across as “too liberal”, the Willie Horton played into the fears that a liberal President would be too soft on issues such as protecting the public from criminals.

We found a Ted Koppel interview with Dukakis which seemed to show an exasperated Koppel, on the one hand trying to grill Dukakis, while on the other, trying to defend the liberal candidate:

From the 1987 New York Times story on Biden:

On Sunday night, Mr. Biden said emphatically that he intended to remain a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. ”I think if I can get by the next week, I can pull out of this if I can just get my story across,” he said.”

This part illicited a laugh from yours truly: “if I can just get my story across”. That was the problem, Biden, caught lifting another guy’s life (Kinnock’s) and clamining it was his own (Biden) plus the revelations that Biden had cheated in law school (lawyers have enough bad PR as it is) and that he was caught “boosting” his credentials, would definitely have a “problem” getting his story across to the now unbelieving and unsympathetic public.

Biden can’t seem to escape the consequences of the modern age of video as this Youtube clip is a constant reminder that Biden’s “off-the-cuff” remarks seem to show a “different side” of Joe Biden, Duncan Donuts, Seven-Eleven’s, and Indian-Americans in Delaware:

Biden’s plagiarism showed a flaw inside the man but not one that was “unfixable”. By now Biden may have realized that he didn’t need to “lift” someone else’s life or cheat on an exam, instead he’s become a voracious critic of Bush’s Iraq war, Guantanamo, torture tactics, and the lack of support for our troops serving in war-torn areas. He makes a up perfect “one-two” punch in the Obama team, Obama has never supported war, Biden, with his foreign policy experience, has come up with specific plans to eventually disengage.

Right now the focus of the country seems to be on creature comforts and not on the conflict in the Middle East. People are suffering with the high cost of gasoline, the current home foreclosure crisis, the lack of affordable health care insurance, and the always uncertain future of Social Security. Except for those directly involved in fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rest of the American public is more focused on the fact that the cost of a gallon of gas has fallen below $4 a gallon but is still way too high, or finding a physician and being able afford the medical insurance.

Obama and Biden represent an ultra-liberal candidacy. Biden’s past role in plagiarism could become the tipping point for a voter in the booth but most likely it will be the ultra-liberal ticket that sways their vote. People are already questioning whether an Obama administration will mean more taxes. Liberals will argue that this isn’t true, that Biden’s tendency to lift other people’s lives was in the past and doesn’t affect his performance in the Senate plus the experience he brings to the Obama ticket. This won’t negate the fact that both Biden and Obama are liberal politicians. Biden doesn’t balance out Obama’s ticket, he stacks it as anti-war and anti-conservative, leaving little wiggle room for moderate Democrats and independents searching for a candidate that reflects their values, leaving them “out in the cold”.

It remains to be seen if those voters will turn to McCain come this November.

By LBG

Image – Liberal Crap