The MBNA Factor
Kathy G. says of Joe Biden that “vote for the bankruptcy bill was unconscionable, and the man is a wholly owned subsidiary of the credit card companies.” It’s certainly true that I could not, in good conscience, imagine voting for the bankruptcy bill. But that’s one of the many reasons I wouldn’t make it in electoral politics — as best I can tell, everyone casts unconscionable votes in defense of home state industries. Certainly I’m not aware of any Senators who are innocent of this particular sin, and Barack Obama (coal, ethanol) is no exception to the general trend.
This, incidentally, is one of the reasons I have a hard time getting quite as worked up about some of the different people in play as a lot of folks in the peanut gallery. If I were the presidential candidate, or a key adviser to the candidate, it would be crucial to me to actually sit down and talk with some of these folks about some elements of their record. Certainly with Biden, his record on issues related to credit card companies is something you’d want to talk about. With Evan Bayh, you’d want to get a general sense of how he envisioned his role as a Democrat in a very conservative state. With anyone from a farm state, I’d want to know how genuinely emotionally and intellectually invested they were in status quo farm policies. But unfortunately as a blogger, I don’t have that luxury and neither do you. That’s not to say that people don’t deserve criticism for bad-on-the-merits votes cast as a sop to home state interests — on the contrary, it’s crucial that they receive criticism for it and that pressure exists for them to walk away from that record if they want to step into roles of national leadership — but it is worth keeping in perspective and recalling that it’ll be hard to find anyone who isn’t compromised in this regard.
I think Biden’s vote for the 2002 Iraq AUMF is a serious problem. It’s a bit hard for me to see how Obama simultaneously says that his “no” vote is an important demonstration of good judgment despite a lack of experience and also that Joe Biden is a great and experienced foreign policy expert. Maybe there’s a brilliant solution to that, but it seems tricky to me.
35 Responses to “The MBNA Factor”
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August 19th, 2008 at 10:16 am
It’s a bit hard for me to see how Obama simultaneously says that his “no” vote is an important demonstration of good judgment despite a lack of experience and also that Joe Biden is a great and experienced foreign policy expert.
The point is that even good people make mistakes, and that Obama’s whole shtick is about bringing people together, which does not really sit well with the ideological-purity-uber-alles Leninism that seems to affect some people.
Obama cannot run on “everyone who supported the war was an idiot,” because most Americans supported the war.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:30 am
One thing that is important to note is that Biden is from Delaware which is where many credit cards are based. So his vote on the bankruptcy bill is very similar to Obama’s on the energy bill which likewise was favorable to his state’s industries (special interest groups).
August 19th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I was wondering that when everyone was talking up Bayh. I’d have him say (about Iraq) “I was wrong and John McCain was wrong and Barack Obama was right and John McCain is still wrong.”
August 19th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I’m glad to see someone state this so succinctly: Biden is protecting a local industry, and it’s probably more defensible than Obama’s ethanol votes, since bankruptcy is an outlying condition (and it’s not clear why one party should have to eat the debts of another, just because one is big and one is small), while ethanol hurts almost everyone in some incremental way for the benefit of a few.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Can we talk about the fact that Joe Biden’s “plan” for Iraq is that we try the India 1947 strategy all over again? And this man is the candidate of sound foreign policy judgment and experience?
Luckily for Biden, the ethnic cleansing aspect of things that is a prerequisite for the “plan” to succeed has already been carried out, so he can’t be blamed for it except inasmuch as he has supported the war and the occupation.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:54 am
There is another interesting thing in Biden’s favor. He’ll be 66 before the next term starts. He would be 74 before he could really run for president. He is unlikely to do so.
Clinton probably doesn’t want the vice presidency, but she also doesn’t want anyone else elevated as a potential contender in 2016. She’ll be 69 in October of 2016 and might still be able to run. If Bayh is the VP and Obama has a good 8 years, Bayh would become the favorite to be nominated.
It is a very small consideration, but I think we want Clinton on board as much as possible.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:02 am
While Biden’s vote on the bankruptcy bill was obviously part of his ongoing protection of Delaware’s credit card industry, this was a substantially worse sin that favoring, say, subsidies for industrial farming or even for coal mining conglomerates.
Subsidies for favored industries come for general tax revenue. But the bankruptcy bill paid off the credit card industry not with tax dollars, but with the money of the most financially desperate people in the country–those considering personal bankruptcy. Shifting the balance of power in favor of the credit card companies and against consumers in this way was just inexcusable for a Democrat.
Joe Biden is toxic. The left will have a fit if Obama picks him. This would be a very poor strategic move.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Of course Daschle, Obama’s political mentor is also in tight with big credit card so we probably already know how a guy who gets advice from U of Chicago was going to go anyway.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Huh? What “no” vote?
August 19th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Joe Biden’s psychotic enthusiasm for moving Georgia & the Ukraine into NATO added to Obama’s foreign policy inexperience is at the best a guarantee of continued militarism with a new Cold War and at worst creates the possibility of nuclear war. The Senator is a nutzoid bear-baiter, possibly worse on FP than John McCain.
I can’t believe MY finds Biden acceptable, with a slight reservation because of the AUMF vote. Check out Biden’s record. He is a nightmare. Yglesias is gone, completely coopted by the DC military-industrial establishment.
No links, but Billmon in a diary at DKos did some actual reporting and analysis on Biden’s and Congress’s record on Eastern Europe.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:35 am
As a Blue Hen, let me tell you a few things about Joe “I’m the poorest man in the Senate” Biden.
He was involved in a Randy “Duke” Cunningham/Obama/Rezko situation with a house sale. He sold his home to a MBNA exec for a price that was well above it’s actual value. His daughter is an entitled out-of-control party girl with many stories trailing her. One son, a non-practicing lawyer, had or still has a job on retainer to MBNA to do nothing.
Joe is a foreign policy expert that voted for the biggest mistake in recent American history. He is a big DOUCHE.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:40 am
It’s a bit hard for me to see how Obama simultaneously says that his “no” vote is an important demonstration of good judgment despite a lack of experience and also that Joe Biden is a great and experienced foreign policy expert.
You can’t. Because the “no” vote, despite what people might like to think, isn’t an important demonstration of good judgment. It was an argument that got alot of traction within the Democratic party, but not much outside. Amazing that nobody noticed that.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:46 am
True, but I’d also don’t think he can run on “everyone who opposed the war was an idiot,” for obvious reasons. So he shouldn’t have a problem finding a candidate among the war opponents.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Have to agree with Rob Mac’s point about the distribution of harm done via the bankruptcy bill compared to ethanol, etc. It’s one thing to rob peter to pay home-state paul inc.; it’s another to substantially impair the prospects of the economically desparate to give the credit industry even more cushiony financials.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I’m with Kathy G and I’d go a step further: no man is more responsible for the bankruptcy bill (which happens to be the most pernicious anti-middle class bill to pass in years, maybe decades – possibly the worst since Taft-Hartley) save George W Bush.
If the idea is to help Obama win over Clinton voters he has another thing coming: Clinton voters are more agnostic about foreign policy (and therefor more tolerant of her Iraq War vote) but passionate about their own bottom lines; picking Biden would only reinforce the idea that Obama is an elitist oblivious of or indifferent to the struggles of the working and middle class.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
As Dave (9) says, Obama did not vote against the war. He opposed it, but he wasn’t in the Senate. A lot of Senators who remembered the first Gulf War didn’t want a “no” vote on the record. Obama was never in danger of having a vote come back to haunt him. Had the war gone well, he could always say, “You know, I wasn’t in the classified Senate briefings, I was concentrating on local politics at the time. Had I known what my worthy opponent knew at the time, I would have supported the war, too.”
But on your more substantial question of how someone could be wrong on Iraq, and still right on foreign policy in general…most religions claim that there is, at most, one perfect human being. Nobody (I hope) is under the impression that that individual is in the running for veep.
Should the Democratic Party (almost entire) have packed it in, and just not bothered to run after the USSR blinked, and Reagan turned out to be right on the “zero option” in the 1980s? Of course not. Should every Republican who opposed intervention in Kosovo abandon all security credentials because Milosevic did surrender pretty easily? Nonsense.
Of course, any mistake you make should lower everyone’s opinions of your foreign policy smarts, but to think that “foreign policy experience” can be nicely approximated by “opposed the Iraq debacle in 2003″ is just not right.
Let’s say my 12 year old nephew opposed the Iraq war. It’s not that he’s really up on international affairs, he just doesn’t like war and he doesn’t like the way Bush talks.
Now let’s say there’s a coup in Pakistan. Some relatively minor group with strong ties to a radical Sunni sect based in the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia seizes power. The general they put in charge is a distant member of the Jordanian Royal Family. India is edgy as usual. Who do you want President Obama to have next to him at the table when they discuss exactly what the President should say to the Indians? My 12 year old nephew, or Joe Biden?
Now, you might not want Joe Biden since he’s a hawk, but I doubt you want my nephew. You want someone with some knowledge and experience.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Biden was drunk during the vote. He’s since had a visit from Jesus berating him for his sins and now sees the error of his ways. At least he thinks it was Jesus. They were in the shower, kinda steamy and water spray was in his eyes. And some shampoo. Jesus sounds just like Jim Backus, which is kinda creepy because you’re reminded of Mr. Magoo when he talks to you. Mr. Magoo dying for my sins just doesn’t work for me. And he’d look pretty pitiful up on that cross. Anyway. Joe was drunk but found God, so He’s OK with me.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
During one of the debates, Biden crowed about his ability to speak about foreign affairs including his relationship with Saakashvili. No one cared.
I would like to know, did Biden get to know ‘Vili thru Randy Scheunemann or some other neocon during Biden’s previous life as a Democracy Spreader? Fuck Biden. He is a world class asshole.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
How is Biden different than Edwards, whom Progressives loved (until…), on AUMF?
August 19th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
How is Biden different than Edwards, whom Progressives loved (until…), on AUMF?
Edwards made some attempts to dial down his hawkishness. Biden, on the other hand, wants to carve Iraq up into ethnically-cleansed partitions and escalate NATO hostilities with Russia.
August 19th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
How is Biden different than Edwards, whom Progressives loved (until…), on AUMF?
Biden has actually worked hard at stopping the Iraq war in the senate, Edwards has done shit except hold single speech.
strasmangelo jones wins a malkin award for not knowing the difference between his fevered fantasy and reality.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Biden has actually worked hard at stopping the Iraq war
Really? I can’t think of a single thing that Biden has accomplished to reduce the violence of this country’s foreign policy, either in Iraq or anywhere else. If he really was working hard to stop the Iraq war, he’s been astonishingly ineffective.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
A few things:
- The left isn’t ‘having a fit’ over Biden. Yes, there’s the awful bankruptcy bill, but Obama was forceful in his opposition to it (see dday at Digby’s place), and it’s his policy that’ll matter. And that bill aside, Biden’s actually got a pretty decent progressive voting record (and the original Violence Against Women Act was his bill, eg). From DKos to Open Left, you’ll find (in general, of course) a level of acceptance of Biden that’s in sharp contrast to the heated opposition to Bayh and even Kaine.
- On the war, Biden is among those who’ve said the vote was a mistake, and most Americans are in the same boat. Again, it’s Obama’s call that matters, as long as he doesn’t pick an actual cheerleader for the war (which Biden was not, and Bayh, say, was).
- Biden’s the perfect surrogate: a brutal attack dog who lands his blows in a plain-spoken, blunt and often funny way that’s actually appealing. (’a noun, a verb and 9/11′…) And he’s got genuine blue-collar appeal (watch some of his campaign appearances on C-SPAN).
The fact is that his foreign-policy credibility right now is an asset. I’m not crazy about the narrow space we’re allowed to debate these issues within, but Biden’s still a fair stretch from McCain and his fellow neocons. And if we’re going to expand that debate space, Obama’s got to win. Given the likely options, I’d be happy with Biden.
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