moar funny pictures
Posted on 08/28/2008 5:15:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
No matter how much I hooted and mooed when Bill Clinton slithered on stage last night to nourish his ego afresh, I couldn't help cracking a smile of recognition when Bubba brought out his slowest drawl to declare, "I looove Joe Biden."
I have been hearing that exact same phrase, drawn out just the same way, from Southern delegates all week when I asked them about Obama's number two. "Oh, we looove Joe Biden," they say, almost always adding that they love him because he just comes on out and says it, consequences be damned. It's been a while since anybody in Dixie was saying such things about a Democrat on the ticket. And it counts as just about the highest compliment a politician can get down there.
Biden's big speech was hardly a classic from start to finish. But what a start: His son Beau (the new heartthrob of the Democratic set--at least my set) got the waterworks going, and Biden kept it flowing for a good while--until that awful "More of the Same" refrain came a-clunking, with the Democrats holding signs bearing the wretched phrase, waving them on cue as if they were auditioning for the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. I almost like Biden better for fumbling those pedestrian lines.
But when Biden means it, you know it--and the things he meant last night, he said with a kind of conviction and sincerity that the '90s version of a Democratic populist, ol' Bill, can only match in his rarest performances. Biden looks a lot like Barack Obama's Bill Clinton--a guy who speaks the kind of American that Democrats in the South and the Midwest can hear. While the general consensus about "using Bill" has been "send him to Appalachia," Biden just might be able to relieve Bubba of that duty and make a fresher case for Obama and the Democrats.
Biden's populism is something different from Clinton's, thank goodness. Unlike the former president, whose political radar (as my friend and Southern strategy foe Tom Schaller noted today) is still set firmly in the mid-'90s mode of Democratic defensiveness, Biden's populism is of the moment. It's not just his Old Democratic refrain--"I'm here for the cops, the firefighters, the teachers and the assembly workers"--which suddenly sounds relevant again, given the economic catastrophes such people are suffering. It's not just the way Biden can turn steely as hell--into the kind of leader a lot of blue-collar folk recognize most readily. (It sounded like he got it from his mom, who told him when he was picked on: "Bloody their nose, so you can walk down the street the next day." Which is a little scary, but also about as real as it gets.)
Biden's greatest asset among white and black "regular people," whether in South Carolina or Southern Ohio, is mainly emotional. Which is precisely where the post-Clinton Democrats have had such trouble connecting. You can sense it even when Biden utters the drabbest of catch phrases: "Let me make this pledge to you right here and now." When John Kerry used to say that, it sounded like nothing but empty political rhetoric. When Biden says it, his eyes are boring into yours (or the camera's), both begging and demanding you to believe him--and it's tough to resist believing indeed that he is making you a pledge, right here and now. And you can't wait, given that it's Biden, to hear what in the world he might be getting ready to pledge.
Where Clinton felt your pain, you sense that Biden has lived it. When Biden talks about folks sitting around the proverbial kitchen table, it's pretty easy to see him sitting at that table -- not looking down on it from a lofty perch and observing the people's pain, but participating in it. Biden's testimony about Barack's Obama's "quality of heart" genuinely matters -- because Biden's heart hangs right out there, and it's the kind of heart that just about every Middle American can recognize. When Biden says, "It's whether or not you can look your child in the eye and say, 'It's going to be all right,' " it comes out in a way that lifts it right off the teleprompter.
I hope at least a small share of my fellow Southerners, and other Middle Americans, were tuned in to hear Biden. Because those who were were bound to have shed some tears, whether they wanted to or not. And that is an emotion -- among many others -- that Democrats have had an awfully hard time provoking over these fallow last four decades. Bill could make you smile, as Obama can. But that's just one half of the formula. It's easy to lament the huge, irrational sway of primal emotional cues on so many millions of American voters -- and not just easy, but valid. But there's no way to deny that if Democrats are going to win, they have to reach people in the gut. Biden knows how.
Independent and swing voters, after all, tend to be people without much of an ideology; they are looking for a lot of (vague) qualities in candidates, but one common thread is that they want somebody whom they sense not only sees them, but knows them. There's no objective measure of that quality. Obama hasn't shown it much so far. Biden, with all the flaws in his voting record and for all his frightening motor-mouthiness, has it. In an otherwise lousy summer, Obama just might have gotten one thing right.
UPDATE: Video of Biden's convention speech below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsOnWJV_-BM
The problem? Biden DOES hail from a slave state, you know.
The Dems might take Alabama.
“I was born in the backseat of a Greyhound bus, rollin’ down Highway 41.” Riiiigghht....
The Dems won’t even take Massachusetts.
And someone else had to respond: "So crazy ... it just might work!"
Paul Greenberg has a column about this.
I applaud the enthusiasm but, once again, I’m afraid this is going to be a very close race.
I hope you’re right.
Close,
you’re right.
>> Biden can turn steely as hell—into the kind of leader a lot of blue-collar folk recognize most readily
ROFL!
Biden’s not a leader, though he fancies himself to be.
He’s an ordinary street thug. The only “steel” is that pipe he’s carrying in his hand.
By the way — everyone including “blue collar folks” can tell a leader from a thug.
“It’s not just his Old Democratic refrain—”I’m here for the cops, the firefighters, the teachers and the assembly workers”—which suddenly sounds relevant again, given the economic catastrophes such people are suffering.”
3.3% GDP growth in the last quarter. God these liberals could win the lottery and they’d still be poor mouthing.
This is so much like their lame script from 1992. “Worst economy in 50 years!” Well in 2008 it is not even a recession, in fact unemployment is low, jobs are being added and exports are growing.
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