He's One Of Us?
Long-time readers of this space, if there are any, may recall a piece I did last year regarding Senator Joe Biden’s (D-DC) lust for the White House. In that particular post, I focused primarily on the difficulty someone from either party faces in running as a sitting United States Senator, especially one that has been in the Senate for over three decades.
One other thing I might have added is that he just isn’t likeable enough to be President.
It’s one thing to be able to charm those with whom you come into personal contact, it’s quite another to be able to do it with the millions of voters who will only know you from what you see on TV or read about. And Joe Biden, whether he’s simply extremely self-confident or just plain arrogant and condescending, won’t be able to clear that obstacle.
Case in point, in his recent appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” the senator who is allegedly from Delaware was asked about his chances of winning Democrat primaries in the South, even as several Southern politicos will be in the same elections.
“Better than anybody else,” he replied, going on to declare, “You don’t know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth-largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a Northeast liberal state.”
There you go. Biden will win in the south because he will be able to convince Southern voters that he isn’t from a Northeast liberal state like, say, Michael Dukakis. And he’ll do this by reminding them that, “Hey! We had slaves in Delaware, too! And we even had Confederate sympathizers!” Then we can sit back and watch all the good ol’ boys flock to his banner.
The interesting thing about Mr. Biden’s comments is that they reflect a mindset that clearly betrays him as a Northeast liberal who knows little about, and demonstrates little desire to learn about, a region of the country that holds 153 electoral votes, of which his party has managed to win zero in the past two presidential elections – including one in which they ran an alleged Southerner. It is a mindset that is rooted in a view of the south that was forged in the aftermath of a war which, one should remember, ended 141 years ago. Nevertheless, leading Democrat lights can’t seem to accept the fact that very few Southerners really reflect the hillbilly/hayseed image in which the coastal crowds love to believe. At least, no more than people from any other part of the country.
That being said, why should NASA Engineers, Corporate Executives, and the millions of other professionals who make up a portion of people who vote in the South that is certainly equal to the same types in other regions be persuaded to support a man for the nation’s most powerful office who holds such a condescending view toward them? If he doesn’t care enough to learn who they are, why should they believe they would have equal standing before an administration that he would lead?
This all calls to mind the ludicrous 1988 rally in Georgia, which retired Democrat Senator Zell Miller – rightly – ridiculed in his book, A National Party No More, for which the Dukakis campaign decorated the stage with hay bales and corn stalks, making the place look like, in Senator Miller’s words, a Hee Haw set. It was important that they make the good folks of Georgia as comfortable with their surroundings as possible despite all those intimidating electrical lights at the site, you know.
The attitude toward the South that drove the Dukakis campaign in the South is the same that is driving remarks like those made by Joe Biden about the South. And, given the electoral weight of the region, it may be the single biggest obstacle Democrat leaders will have to overcome in the next two years if they hope to return one of their own to the presidency. We can laugh at Jeff Foxworthy's jokes because we know that he, a former engineer himself, knows better. When are the Democrats going to prove to us that they know better?
One other thing I might have added is that he just isn’t likeable enough to be President.
It’s one thing to be able to charm those with whom you come into personal contact, it’s quite another to be able to do it with the millions of voters who will only know you from what you see on TV or read about. And Joe Biden, whether he’s simply extremely self-confident or just plain arrogant and condescending, won’t be able to clear that obstacle.
Case in point, in his recent appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” the senator who is allegedly from Delaware was asked about his chances of winning Democrat primaries in the South, even as several Southern politicos will be in the same elections.
“Better than anybody else,” he replied, going on to declare, “You don’t know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth-largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a Northeast liberal state.”
There you go. Biden will win in the south because he will be able to convince Southern voters that he isn’t from a Northeast liberal state like, say, Michael Dukakis. And he’ll do this by reminding them that, “Hey! We had slaves in Delaware, too! And we even had Confederate sympathizers!” Then we can sit back and watch all the good ol’ boys flock to his banner.
The interesting thing about Mr. Biden’s comments is that they reflect a mindset that clearly betrays him as a Northeast liberal who knows little about, and demonstrates little desire to learn about, a region of the country that holds 153 electoral votes, of which his party has managed to win zero in the past two presidential elections – including one in which they ran an alleged Southerner. It is a mindset that is rooted in a view of the south that was forged in the aftermath of a war which, one should remember, ended 141 years ago. Nevertheless, leading Democrat lights can’t seem to accept the fact that very few Southerners really reflect the hillbilly/hayseed image in which the coastal crowds love to believe. At least, no more than people from any other part of the country.
That being said, why should NASA Engineers, Corporate Executives, and the millions of other professionals who make up a portion of people who vote in the South that is certainly equal to the same types in other regions be persuaded to support a man for the nation’s most powerful office who holds such a condescending view toward them? If he doesn’t care enough to learn who they are, why should they believe they would have equal standing before an administration that he would lead?
This all calls to mind the ludicrous 1988 rally in Georgia, which retired Democrat Senator Zell Miller – rightly – ridiculed in his book, A National Party No More, for which the Dukakis campaign decorated the stage with hay bales and corn stalks, making the place look like, in Senator Miller’s words, a Hee Haw set. It was important that they make the good folks of Georgia as comfortable with their surroundings as possible despite all those intimidating electrical lights at the site, you know.
The attitude toward the South that drove the Dukakis campaign in the South is the same that is driving remarks like those made by Joe Biden about the South. And, given the electoral weight of the region, it may be the single biggest obstacle Democrat leaders will have to overcome in the next two years if they hope to return one of their own to the presidency. We can laugh at Jeff Foxworthy's jokes because we know that he, a former engineer himself, knows better. When are the Democrats going to prove to us that they know better?
posted by JeffreyH | 9:30 AM
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