This is the first in a series of posts about the Vice-Presidential debate this Thursday. We’ll be there at 8:45 PM ET at the online channel. Tonight: Joe Biden.
Both vice-presidential choices this year were a bit of a surprise, and the first surprise was Obama naming his former rival for the Democratic nomination. Biden’s campaign never gained traction, and he dropped out after receiving less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa caucus.
Biden has said some incredibly stupid things in the time since then – in this Meet the Press interview (starts at 2:00 in), he manages to give stupid answers on offshore drilling that disagree with both his Party’s platform and basic logic. But he is an extremely well-respected member of the Senate, and the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Here are some of the bills he has sponsored.
Why did Obama choose Biden as Vice Presidential candidate?
- As you may have heard 3,487 times during Obamarama (the Democratic National Convention), Biden is from the swingstate city of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Obama is hoping that Biden’s background coming from a working-class Pennsylvania family will help carry Pennsylvania.
- One of the biggest worries about Obama during the primaries was his lack of foreign policy experience (remember Clinton’s “red phone” ad?). Biden, as one of the most respected foreign policy experts in the Senate, will help reassure voters about foreign policy.
So what can we expect out of Biden in a debate? The most famous moment in Joe Biden’s President-running career took place during a debate. During Biden’s 1988 Presidential campaign, at an appearance at the Iowa State Fair, he famously plagiarized a speech from British politician Neil Kinnock (not to be confused with Nile Kinnick).
Kinnock: Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to a University … was it because all our predecessors were thick, those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up to play football?
Biden: I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden’s the first in his family ever to go to University … is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright… who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football?
Biden claimed that he simply forgot to properly credit Kinnock in the speech – and supporting this is the fact that Biden had given the speech before, crediting Kinnock then. So, you know, Believe Him or Not. Personally, I’m inclined to given Biden the benefit of the doubt, if only because I can’t imagine a politician being stupid or arrogant enough to actually think he could get away with it.
Don’t look for any more plagiarism Thursday – I expect that it’s nearly impossible in the YouTube age. But do look for Biden’s famous wit. He had one of the best lines of the 2008 campaign, describing Rudy Giuliani’s speeches as “a noun, a verb, and 9/11.” Tuning in to see what Biden might say will be one of the fun things about Thursday’s debate.
