As the election draws ever nearer, and even as I find myself getting more and more pissed off at the half-truths being perpetuated by BOTH presidential campaigns, I came across an article the other day from Newsweek that was a pretty frank look at Joe Biden … and I say frank, because Joe was being his normal, effusive, even self-depracating self. I love him for that.
I know many people believe Biden can be an elitist. Some people think that makes him arrogant (which I think even he would agree he can occasionally be), and others (myself included) are willing to overlook his occasional chutzpah, because it comes from an inherently good place. The bottom line for me is that Joe Biden is just an incredibly smart man. His knowledge on foreign policy, especially, is unbelievably deep. As we saw so forcefully in the vice presidential debate, he’s also a man whose emotions sometimes sneak up on him. And for me, his fantastic mix of intelligence, charisma, and willingness to tell it like it is makes him the ideal elected official.
Here’s maybe my favorite part of the Newsweek piece:
When he puts himself on the couch, Biden finds that he has what he describes as a Reaganesque habit of occasionally telling stories that are true in a larger sense but “might not be totally accurate” (the 1987 plagiarism from British politician Neil Kinnock fit into this category). Throughout his life, he says, he gets in trouble when he gets angry, even if it’s for the right reasons. He finally concluded that what sets him off (whether it was punching another kid in the old neighborhood who pushed his sister or losing control in a hearing room) is the same thing that has animated his public passions (civil rights at the beginning of his career, the Violence Against Women Act, confronting genocide in Bosnia). It’s Joe Biden’s unified theory of himself: “Everything about my faith and family has centered on this notion of abuse of power. Where I end up crossing the line is related to people being taken advantage of.”
That sentiment definitely pulls at my inner compass, because it so closely adheres to the things I constantly find myself being pulled back to in my academic studies. For example, I want to study elections because I care why people don’t vote–why people (as some people I know) who struggle to keep the lights on and who maybe sometimes have to decide which bill to pay this month don’t see a connection between what’s happening in their world and the people who are elected? I believe it’s important NOT because any one of their votes would make a difference — it wouldn’t, except in the smallest of electoral contests, and even then, probably not — but rather because when a group of people systematically fail to participate, they’re left out. I used to preach about this incessantly to my students; if young people started voting en masse, in the kinds of numbers we see with senior citizens, public policy in this country related to things like education funding would dramatically change… because it would *have* to.
And so I find myself occasionally turning to people around me, often people who I know have different viewpoints than me — some of them the people I described above — and asking them what they think of the candidates in the race right now. My dad, who is retired and certainly has a different political mindset than me, but who I assume is worried about the stock market given that his life savings is invested in various places, spoke in oblique terms about the candidates when I asked him the other day, mostly because I’m sure he’s well aware of my own political inclinations, but I was fascinated with what he had to say. I would be THRILLED to get a teaching job in Iowa or New Hampshire someday, just so I can experience the early days of political campaigns once for myself. Just once.
At any rate, I believe in Joe Biden. As I said before, his choice as VP sealed my vote for the Democrats this year.
And by contrast, Sarah Palin continues to scare the living daylights out of me. The latest scary thing I first saw on Bill Maher’s HBO show “Real Time.” (Aside: I don’t agree with everything Maher says, but I really enjoy some of the guests he has on the show… in this particular episode, for example, he had Bob Woodward and Christiane Amanpour.) I’ll embed the clip… if you haven’t seen this, please take a few minutes to watch. I understand this has fallen through the mainstream media cracks because of the much larger (and much more important) economic woes facing the country, but I think it’s really important that we understand who we’re electing. And while I think Maher takes his crusading against organized religion too far, his broader point is one worth hearing, even if you disagree with him. (Feel free to forward to about 1:54.)