Well, it's started. I saw it first in Politics Daily, but they say they spied it earlier in Time Magazine's website yesterday--the idea that President Obama should dump Vice President Joe Biden in 2012 and replace him with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They quote former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder writing even earlier this month on Politico that she would help win back "middle-class independents" who have always preferred her to Obama. Politics Daily's Eleanor Clift adds that Biden "would be a natural" at State. Straight job swap, I guess.
Well, maybe. It's been done before, of course. Franklin Roosevelt, who was elected four times, had three VPs --John Nance Garner in his first term, Henry Wallace in his second, and Harry Truman during FDR's third and what he served of his fourth terms.
Has Biden done anything awful as VP? No. Detractors speak of "gaffes' and there have been some. "This is a big fucking deal!" when Barack Obama signed the health care bill. "His mom lived on Long Island for ten years or so, God rest her soul. And although she's--wait, your mom's still, your mom's still alive...your dad passed. God bless her soul." And so on. But the fate of the republic will not rest on stuff like that. I remember him pausing thoughtfully during a Senate speech one day and then saying, "Of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about." God bless his candor, I thought.
But it's out there now and people will gossip about it. Whatever decision the president finally makes--and he'll be the one who makes it--will probably depend less on Biden's merits or Clinton's but more, sadly, on the polls.
1 comment:
Polls are people too...interesting that neither Joe nor Hill are obvious heirs...how about picking a young person whom he might want to succeed him? Like...next column please!
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