Donors are not especially anxious about Joe Biden getting into the race. If he did declare this late in the game, he would be in at least a $45 million dollar fundraising deficit against Clinton, with no real hope to catch up since virtually every major fundraiser in the party — including many who were once Biden people — are now on Clinton’s team.
For this reason, as I have said many times here, I am not a fan of Joe Biden getting into the presidential race, for I believe it will tarnish his legacy. Instead, I viewed him as a Plan B that could step in should Clinton die or drop out.
But it seems that Joe Biden, while on vacation down in South Carolina, was actively considering a campaign, if not planning for it. And one of the trial balloons that was floated as a result, through the fingers of one Carl Bernstein, was this notion of a one term Presidency that would finally bring this country together.
“[O]ne thing that I keep hearing about Biden is that if he were to declare and say, because age is such a problem for him if he does, I want to be a one-term president. I want to serve for four years, unite Washington. I’ve dealt with the Republicans in Congress all my public life,” Bernstein told CNN’s “New Day.”
“I think there’s a conversation going on to that effect among his aides and friends,” he said. “It could light fire to the current political environment.
Fuck. No.
First off, Joe Biden has already been working his “magic” on the Hill during these past eight years. Take away Obama, and tell me what compromises will Republicans agree to? And pray tell, what concessions would Biden make to the GOP so that the beltway media and pundits can luxuriate in the notion that Washington is United? Ending Obamacare? Privatizing Social Security? Voucherizing Medicare and Medicaid?
Nothing makes me angrier than this bullshit about unity in Washington from the punditry, because they have fond memories where the parties got along in the 50’s and 60’s and 70’s and 80’s. Because it tells me that our punditry are in fact political and historical idiots. An era of bipartisanship existed during the Cold War because of the Cold War and because the two parties were both ideologically divided. There were liberals and conservatives in both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. And a lot of them, not just one or two. So there was bipartisanship because either the liberal wing of both parties voted for something, or the conservative wing of both parties voted for something.
That era is over. It is not coming back. We are now in a Parliamentary Era where each party represents one ideology. We have been since 1994. Our punditry, and old fools like Carl Bernstein, need to finally finally wake up to it.
Washington cannot be united. And it shouldn’t be. What instead has to happen is that, if you want anything to get done in Congress, is to vote for one party completely or the other, so that you have Congress and the Presidency controlled by one party.
Second, making such a promise of being a one-termer is the ultimate sign of weakness. It is a beg. John McCain did it during the general election in 2008, and people appropriately laughed. If you get elected as one-termer, then you have no leverage. No political capital. If they wanted, the opposing party could just wait out your presidency.
So I hope Joe Biden does not run. I hope he preserves his legacy as a very effective and good Vice President. I hope that if he does run, then he does not make this one term pledge. Because if he did, well, let’s just say it won’t speak well of him.