Even as the all-but-officially-running Joe Biden got a HuffPo cover piece touting his union bona fides, progressives with long memories and LexisNexis access scored another direct hit on his politics of the past. A Harper’s piece headlined “Joe Biden’s Disastrous Legislative Legacy” lays out a brief against Uncle Joe that is long, detailed and broad enough to make him look out of step with the Democratic electorate. The pattern it establishes is one of selling out progressive goals for the sake of bipartisanship.
Even the HuffPo piece, which seemed like a sop to Biden after the site’s savage article of the day before, made him seem like a dinosaur. It’s all about the 40-year friendship between Joe and the head of the national firefighters’ union, and how his old pal wants him to run and will be there to support him. Great. Lotta energy there.
Clearing the field of other white centrist men gains Biden dibs on a good-sized bloc of voters, but it also concentrates opposition scrutiny and progressive scorn toward the old guard. The length of this final presidential bid depends on how he handles the pressure.