Doubts, backstabbing, unrest: recipe for Obama-Biden convention--or "Clinton convention"?

By Wes Vernon

In taking the second spot on the Obama ticket, Senator Joseph Biden, Jr. adds a measure of assurance to Democrat party elders. The Delaware lawmaker is a veteran of 36 years in the United States Senate. He's an old hand. He's familiar. They know him, warts and all. That is enough for Democrats who fear that in nominating Senator Barack Obama for the number one spot, they will be stuck with an empty suit who comes off to the general electorate as "not ready for prime time."

Pros and cons

The question is: Will Biden offer enough assurance for the 2008 voters? Already there have been critical blog postings suggesting that the balance in the ticket is that whereas Obama is a young lightweight, Biden is an old lightweight.

Having been in Washington all the years that Biden has been in the U.S. Senate, I can only report my impressions.

Joe Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 29. He reached the eligible age (30) for that lofty position by the time he was sworn in.

Immediately following the election of that year, I was doing a series of radio "mini-docs" on the newly-elected members of Congress.

In my interview with a youthful Biden, I heard all the ambition and good intentions one would expect prior to getting the "go along to get along" discipline from Capitol Hill's party-line enforcers.

He was very open and hospitable. The senator-elect was just moving into his office, with the able assistance of his charming wife Neilia, who could not have been more gracious. A woman with that kind of personal magnetism undoubtedly had been of great help on the campaign trail where her husband barely squeaked through and prevailed over a two-term Senate incumbent Republican, James Caleb Boggs — a former congressman and governor. Biden was helped by Boggs' leaving the impression that he was about ready to retire and was pursuing one more term to cap a distinguished career.

I surmised that the attractive Biden couple would soon be the toast of a Washington fascinated by youth since the Camelot days of John and Jackie Kennedy.

But it was not to be

A few days later, tragedy intervened to end the many hopes and dreams of the young family. Neilia Biden and their infant daughter were killed in an automobile accident. Their two young sons were badly injured. The new senator was sworn into office from his sons' bedside. His first instinct was to resign from the Senate so that he could have more time to care for them. He was dissuaded from that course of action and the boys — Beau and Hunter — eventually made full recoveries. In 1977, Senator Biden remarried. He and his second wife Jill had a daughter Ashley.

A rail commuter

Since arriving in Washington, Senator Biden has made the hour and a half Amtrak commute each way between Washington and Wilmington, Delaware — every day except for late night Senate sessions.

He and the presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain have had private (friendly but in disagreement) conversations over the years about federal backing of Amtrak.

McCain has argued that his constituents in Arizona should not have to pay for part of Biden's daily commute. The Delaware lawmaker's comeback was that he has voted for water projects that greatly benefitted McCain's constituents in Arizona, with the tab paid in part by Biden's Delaware constituents.

This column believes — as did Alexander Hamilton and Adam Smith — that infrastructure (including rail infrastructure) is right up there with defense of America as a legitimate central government function and in keeping with the conservative ethos.

But there are other issues

As Biden "matured" (a Washington euphemism for "house broken" in the ways of this town), one could see his less attractive side.

When he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, Joe Biden led the smear campaign against President Reagan's nomination of Federal Judge Robert Bork to be a Supreme Court Justice. During the hearings, Biden arranged it so that the TV cameras would be positioned in such a way as to spotlight Judge Bork's girth. Never mind the jurist's intellect. An older Biden is not exactly svelte either, but hey, this wasn't serious business in Biden's world. This was politics.

Had he been confirmed, Judge Bork would have gone down in judicial history with the greats — John Marshall, Oliver Wendell Holmes, etc. Biden's trivializing a high court nomination stands as a shining example of why Americans take a dim view of politicians.

Later, when taking the gavel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden never saw an entangling alliance that he didn't like.

One after the other, as chairman and later ranking minority Democrat, he was in the front line of those pushing proposed treaties what would compromise America's sovereignty and — in some cases — its security. When Jesse Helms chaired the committee, he and Biden maintained a civil relationship of mutual respect while disagreeing on nearly every fundamental foreign policy issue.

Filling Obama's criteria

Barack Obama was looking around for someone whose working experience in the Senate exceeded his own meager 143 working days in that body. Biden has that. But experience is not the sole criterion. More important is how that experience is used. And on that score, Biden only re-emphasizes Obama's own weakness.

The Clintons

In recent days, there has been some speculation that the roll-call vote on the convention floor — demanded by the Clintons and agreed to by Obama — might have been aimed at creating mischief for the Illinois senator.

Perhaps Clinton-backers were gambling on a "buyers' remorse" on the part of delegates due to Obama's recent slippage in the polls. Maybe they thought some "super delegates" who are free to change their minds at the last minute might have given Hillary Clinton enough votes to make the roll call embarrassingly close — or perhaps even reverse the outcome. The Biden pick made that scenario less likely if for no other reason than the appearance of "maturity" being added to the ticket.

But the Clintons are not "going away"

That is not to say the wounds have been healed. While some Clinton supporters are mollified by Biden, there are diehard holdouts. Diane Mantouvalos — who heads the Just-Say-No-Deal-Coalition has been in Denver firing up anti-Obama sentiment. She told the AP the Biden selection undermines Obama's call for "change." She says the VP selection was a "desperate move."

The Clintons themselves are miffed that Barack Obama did not give Hillary the courtesy of "vetting" her or in some other way at least considering her for the VP spot.

The Hillary Clinton campaign intended to have 40 "whips" out on the floor during that rollcall — supposedly to quell any overt protest against the Obama nomination — bearing in mind that many liberal Democrat women and some independents — are extremely disappointed that Obama denied the New York senator the goal of being the first woman president.

Those "whips," however, just might be enforcers under orders to take names of those delegates who had committed to Clinton and did not stick with her on the rollcall. That could be in preparation for 2012, when Hillary would like to reward loyalists and punish turncoats if she makes another run that year. Of course, that assumes that Obama will lose in 2008. There have been subtle and not-so-subtle indications that the Clinton machine is hoping for just that result, and that Senator Clinton's campaigning for Obama has been for show — coming off as the dutiful party loyalist. In reality, the Clintons (Bill and Hillary) have barely concealed their dislike for the young upstart who upstaged the former first lady's "inevitability."

Meanwhile, outside the convention hall

Law enforcement officials — federal and local — were preparing for what the New York Times reported may very well be huge protests and mammoth traffic tie-ups in Denver — not so much over the Hillary vs. Obama kerfuffle, but for any one of a number of extremist causes.

Denver Mayor John W. Hickenlooper — a Democrat — was said to be alarmed when Obama opted to move his acceptance speech to the 75,000 capacity outdoor Invesco Field.

1968?

We don't need a repeat of the Democrat 1968 convention in Chicago. I saw the cops battling terrorist rioters who were not peaceful marchers. They were there to raise hell. If it had not been for the Chicago cops, they would have stormed the convention hall itself.

Among the subversive organizations involved was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which spawned the even more violent Weather Underground — ironically the stomping grounds of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who would later launch Obama's political career.

History has many ways way of linking the past to the present.

© Wes Vernon