Remember Mittmentum? Those were the days…
Many Democrats have had nightmares that the Obama-Clinton tug’o'war was going to upstage Sen. Joe Biden’s debut at the DNC. Wrong. Biden’s speech capped off the day when the Democratic convention finally lived up to the hype and its protagonists replaced Tracy Flick behavior with Saved by the Bell camaraderie.
Honor defines you and loyalty redeems you, his mother taught him. That’s what you want to hear from your running mate where the relationship is what Lyndon Johnson told Hubert Humphrey, a “marriage with no chance of divorce.”
Beau Biden, the senator’s son, provided a tear jerker introduction. Joe Biden was presented as a family man on a heroic level. His first wife and one of his four children were killed in an auto accident. Two other children were hospitalized. Joe Biden committed to taking the four hour train ride home to Wilmington to be with the children.
The vice presidential nomination was Joe Biden’s just desserts. He overcame the loss of wife and daughter, a terrible stutter as a kid on the playground, and economic hardship growing up in Pennsylvania. He’d been a senator since he was 30, reelected six times, and ran for president once before in 1988.
The vice presidential nominee is telling of how the presidential nominee is to govern. Joe Biden is as tough, as he is honest, as he is experienced. He called genocide advocate and Serbian dictator Slobodan MiloÅ¡ević a war criminal to his face, whereas President Bush takes satisfaction is showcasing Saddam Hussein’s pistol.
Some bloggers said two senators on a ticket would be too much talk. Senators are more apt to talk than to do. An examination of Biden’s character and legislative record proves that he is one senator who can talk and do, sponsoring pivotal legislation like the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act.
Merit is something close to Biden’s heart, Obama’s too. They know what’s it’s like to earn and more importantly, how earning generates esteem and respect. Defining the American dream as a meritocracy where “if you try hard enough” you can make it, as Biden said, will resonate with Democrats, Republicans and independents.
Americans are “asking questions so ordinary and profound,” a seemingly contradictory notion that makes sense considering 80 percent of Americans think the nation is on the wrong track and and the U.S. is more than $9.6 trillion in debt. When things seem so wrong in the nation and in the Democratic Party, Joe Biden reminded us the election is about who can best change the direction of America.
“Remember when the world used to trust us?” Biden asked. “When they looked to us for leadership? With Barack Obama as our president, they’ll look to us again, they’ll trust us again, and we’ll be able to lead again.”
