Cook's Amy Walter framed Biden's misguided run for the presidency slightly different from my own preference to hearken directly back to Warren G Harding's Return to Normalcy campaign; hers is Restoration Versus Revolution. That works. Think about the English Civil War (1642-1651). Charles I was executed in 1649. The restoration refers to the period from 1660 when Charles II returned from exile in Holland and was restored to the throne, which those who hated Oliver Cromwell-- who ran the show while there was no king-- called "a divinely ordained miracle." Many who participated in the overthrow of the kind were drawn and quartered, hung, beheaded, imprisoned for life, etc. The Restoration turned England into a cesspool and it was ended when Parliament invited William of Orange to invade England and help them overthrow James II in 1688 (the Glorious Revolution). He was allowed to flee and move in with Louis XIV, finally ending England's political and civil strife by confirming the primacy of Parliament over the monarchy.I hope Amy Walter is a fan of English history was wasn't referring to furniture or restoration theater in her title. As for revolution... we all know what that is and many of us are aware that we're not talking about shining the turds on the edges but about fundamental change that would impact the lives of all Americans. "The leaders of the ‘revolution’ wing, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren," wrote Walters, "aren’t running to simply replace President Trump, but to bring serious, structural change to the country. This week, the leader of the ‘restoration’ wing-- Vice President Joe Biden-- announced his candidacy. To Biden, it’s not the system that’s broken as much as it is the person in charge of the system who is broken. 'I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time,' Biden says in his opening video. Biden is only running because of Trump. Sanders and Warren would be running even if another Republican were in the White House."Biden is running because he's always felt he should be president-- divine right-- and he's failed at it 6 times before. Now he claims he's running because of "the white supremacy march in Charlottesville." He's so full of shit you can smell it on the West Coast. Status Quo Joe Biden would be as good for America as Charles II was for England.
Meanwhile, it is highly likely that Warren and Sanders would be running for president, even if it were President Ted Cruz or President Marco Rubio running for re-election. In his February presidential announcement video, Sanders says that his campaign is not only "about defeating President Trump, the most dangerous president in history...It is about transforming our country and creating a government based on principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice. Our campaign is about taking on the powerful special interests that dominate our economic life.”At her presidential kick-off in Lawrence, Massachusetts in February, Warren makes clear that she’s not just running against Trump, she’s running against the system."Because the man in the White House is not the cause of what’s broken, he’s just the latest-- and most extreme-- symptom of what’s gone wrong in America. A product of a rigged system that props up the rich and the powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else. And so, once he’s gone, we can’t pretend that all of this never happened. It won’t be enough to just undo the terrible acts of this administration. We can’t afford to just tinker around the edges-- a tax credit here, a regulation there. Our fight is for big, structural change."There are a bunch of other candidates in the race, of course. But, most fall closer to the ‘restoration’ wing than the ‘revolutionary’ one. For example, while Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker are running as agents of change, they are still coloring within the lines and with a caution that Warren and Sanders do not display.To me, the big question for these next few months is if Biden will take the fight directly to the "revolutionaries" in a way the other candidates have not.Biden gave us some hints as to his thinking back in early April. Asked by a reporter to explain why he called himself the most progressive candidate in the race, Biden took a not-so-veiled swipe at Sanders."..But my point is, is the definition of 'progressive' now seems to be changing. That is, “Are you a socialist? Well, that’s a real progressive.” Or you believe in, whatever. So I was talking about up until this last time around the traditional judgments of whether or not you were, quote, a 'liberal,' was whether or not-- what your positions on race were; on women; what’s your position on LGBT community; what’s your positions on civil liberties, you know. I’ll stack my record on those things against anybody whose even run, who’s running now, or who will run.”To be sure, there are plenty of Democrats who’d be happy to stack up their records on women and race with Biden. After all, Biden’s forty-year track record on these issues is littered with inconsistencies. Just this week, those inconsistencies came into stark relief at the "She the People" presidential forum in Houston. Interviews with women of color attending the event by the AP, found a lot of ambivalence to a Biden candidacy, as "black women repeatedly pointed to a singular issue plaguing Biden's candidacy: his handling of the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas and the Senate Judiciary Committee's treatment of Anita Hill.." They also balked at the early conventional wisdom of Biden as a 'safe' and 'electable' choice. "I know that we have been cultured to feel that only the white man can save us," the LaMarque, Texas organizer said Wednesday. "I just don't feel like Biden is our answer."Before today, Biden has spent most of his pre-candidacy apologizing for and explaining; his work on the 1994 Crime Bill, his handling of the Anita Hill hearings and his (literally) hands-on style of personal interaction. Now, he has a chance to pivot to the offense. And, to reset the rules and terrain of the game that have, until this point, been set by Bernie Sanders. Let’s see if-- and how-- he does it.
Early Friday morning, Chuck Todd and his team at NBC noted that a Bernie versus Biden race "represents one heck of an ideological contrast." Leaving aside Biden's penchant for the corrupt swampy politics of the status quo DC establishment, the two are at loggerheads over
• health care (Sanders is for a single-payer system; Biden likely will work to protect/strengthen Obamacare);• trade (Sanders opposed the TPP trade agreement; Biden backed it as Barack Obama’s VP);• and their vision for 2020 (Sanders is once again calling for a political revolution; Biden is running on a political restoration project).
Team Todd noted that Thursday night "Elizabeth Warren took a swipe at Biden’s entry when she was asked about his record on Wall Street and bankruptcy, per MSNBC’s Shirley Zilberstein. 'At a time when the biggest financial institutions in this country were trying to put the squeeze on millions of hard-working families who were in bankruptcy because of medical problems, job losses, divorce and death in the family, there was nobody to stand up for them,' she said. 'I got in that fight because they just didn't have anyone. And Joe Biden was on the side of the credit card companies.' Ouch."
