As I’ve said before, I like Joe Biden and would like him to run for President.
But, in the interest of fair disclosure: I also would like Joe to run because I want Mitt Romney to run and a Biden vs Romney election would give me peace about the country since both men pass the authenticity and decency tests I filter political picks through.
Non-dangerous candidates running against each other with mostly the same end-goals who just differ on policies arriving at those goals takes the terror out of the election but I like the matchup as a matter of interest in the news as well since it levels the star-power playing field, forcing a discussion on actual substance.
Substance hasn’t been at issue in national elections for decades. 2008’s McCain vs Obama was all about the star power of Obama and McCains VP pick Sarah Palin for their “first” status and rockstar appeal and Obama vs Romney similarly focused the race the perceived personalities of the two candidates instead of Obamas record and Romneys ideology.
Romney vs Biden is a race between two rich white guys in their 70s.
Biden – a career politician whose first run for the presidency was in the 80s, then again in the 2007 Democrat primary Barack Obama won and current sitting Vice President at the time of the election
vs
Romney – a private sector businessman who has been flirting with politics since the 90s, having unsuccessfully run against Ted Kennedy for senate and later serving 1 term as Governor of Massachusetts, running for president in the 2007 primary and again in 2012, becoming the Presidential nominee but losing to the Obama/Biden ticket.
This match-up creates a dynamic where issues and ideology can take the spotlight in place of the identity-politics of the previous examples. It also raises several interesting points…
1- IT’S THE REMATCH AMERICA DESERVES
Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and Republican Mitt Romney all ran for president in 2008 and failed to get their parties nomination for the race that elected Barack Obama to the presidency.
A Hillary Clinton vs Mitt Romney race would mean 2 candidates who both ran directly against Barack Obama (Clinton in 08, Romney in ’12) and lost so it’s more of a story about candidates getting another bite at the apple (Hillary to win the nomination and Romney to win the presidency after the nomination). While Hillary served for 1 term in the Obama administration as secretary of state and thus would not only put on electoral trial the administration of her husband but also that of Obama’s, her lack of any actual life accomplishments or significant role in history other than “being around men making history” is a problem.
There is a better matchup…
Joe Biden vs Mitt Romney would be a rematch of the Obama Administration vs a potential Romney administration. This is a much more interesting divide than “Republican ideals of smaller government vs ‘first woman president'”.
Barack Obama was the first president to win reelection with less states and less votes than he was initially elected into office with and he largely won through demonizing his opponent and sliding by unchallenged by a sympathetic media to some majorly false promises, predictions, and attacks. America deserves to revisit these attacks straight against the VP of an administration that scored debate points on things like “the sequester will not happen” (it did, after Obamas reelection), or that Romney’s regard of Russia as a geopolitical foe was ridiculous “cold war (ie: backwards/outdated)” thinking only to then, after safely being re-elected, have to face Russia as – oops – a geopolitical foe in a list of troublesome ways.
Not that anyone besides insiders and nerds like me even remember any of those moments today and are hungry for a straightening of the public record – but rather because everyone following the election remembered them at the time and then forgot them. That’s kindov cheating, don’t you think? When you get positive buzz that translates to more support which translates to more votes that translate to a victory and then later the roots of it all not only turn out to be false but turn out to reveal that your opponent was right… that’s some shady ass sh*t, bruh. A Romney vs Obamas-2nd-in-command race would force some record setting and give the VP an opportunity to defend his boss and party’s terrible judgement and let the people decide.
Advantage: Romney
2- IT’S A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
For the Democrats, a Romney nomination kills the starpower momentum on the Republican side. At the time of this writing, the top Republican primary candidates are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Marco Rubio. In the same order: A celebrity billionaire, a black neurosurgeon, a former tech CEO, and a 1 term cuban-American senator from Florida. In any of those matchups except Trump (whom everyone knows will not be the nominee), the Democrats are at a “personal story” disadvantage because all of those top contenders are non-career politicians and have compelling personal stories while the Democrats current top candidates – Hillary Clinton and the as-yet-undeclared Vice President Biden are both life long politicians, gray haired and white as mountain snow.
Hillary faces a disadvantage among all of those candidates because they are all fresh faces with earnestness in their character while Hillary is an old face (politically) with the words “dishonest’ and “liar” most commonly associated with her and her “first woman president” story is undermined by Rubio being Cuban-American, and Carsons “first black president” credential (succeeding the nations first half-black/darker skinned president, Barack Obama).
All that makes Biden a better choice since the choice would be between 2 lifetime politician older white candidates – better to go with the one with actual accomplishments in his record and who has authenticity and honesty attached to his name than an accomplishment-less candidate thought to be serially dishonest.
For the Republicans, however, those names I mentioned win the scorecard on personal story and fresh face charisma, but lose on experience, which can be easily exploited by a Biden campaign. Their solution ought to be to run one of those candidates or one like them as their Vice Presidential nominee and one most-like them but without their baggage in their top slot. The only option that ticks all those boxes is one Mitt Romney. A candidate who has already been vetted, is popular among donors, is not a career politician, and is a good debater.
Advantage: Biden
3- BOTH MEN WOULD SURELY PICK NON-WHITE MALE RUNNING MATES
It would be both mens 3rd run at the Presidency and I highly suspect both would choose non-white-male running mates which would be great for political engagement and general dialog.
Advantage: Draw
4- IT IS BOTH MENS LAST CHANCE AT THIS WHOLE ‘PRESIDENT’ THING
They are both too old and have gone around the block too many times. 2 runs for president is generally the maximum. Reagan and Nixon are the only ones to successfully run 3 times and only Nixon ran as the losing nominee (to JFK), coming back to run again and win the nomination and the presidency years later. For both Romney and Biden, this is their back to back #3. Biden is still living on the White House grounds, for gosh sake, and Romney was the GOP nominee for the last election that Biden won his VP reelection in. They’re both too old to ever make their 3rd try after 2016. This is it. Both men want the job. Both men have tried for it. Both men have this one and only last chance bid for the position… That’s exciting. That’s a story. That’s some Reality Show level stakes. And frankly, both men deserve to make their case on why they should lead this country before its too late.
Advantage: Draw
5- IT WOULD “END” ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDES
End is of course in quotations because obviously no political argument ever truly “ends” regardless of the amount of facts involved. But for all intents and purposes, both sides would be able to make various claims about a victory in this unique matchup alone that don’t work for other match-ups.
Democrats – Think that Romney really is the evil corporate uncaring monster the Obama 2012 campaign claimed? Lets see if America still thinks so…
Republicans – Think the Obama administration really is an America ruining pestilence across the land that the American people were bamboozled into? Lets put its VP up for the job and see if America really thinks so…
The victor of these divides come with more than a victorious election, but with a history proving set of “see I told you so”s under their belt that raises the stakes for both sides.
Advantage: Draw
But whatever – that aspect of this isn’t important. The thesis here is that Joe Biden is presidential material, a mountain among midgets, and deserves a national spotlight as a nominee for the nations highest office. Mitt Romney, likewise, was the best nominee either party has seen in decades and got cheated out of a victory he objectively deserved by metrics regarding the ideology of the electorate and the number of key campaign arguments the winning side made that later turned out to be false.
This is the matchup that America may not want or care for, but it’s the race the country needs and deserves.