I wonder if Joe Biden’s advisers are as stunned as Hillary’s about how one vote is haunting his campaign? For Hillary, it is her vote authorizing military force in Iraq and her refusal to call it a mistake. For Joe Biden it is the bankruptcy bill. The vote probably would have gone without much notice in prior campaigns, but it has been well publicized in the online community, earning Biden the moniker ‘Biden (MBNA-DE)’.
The bankruptcy bill is such a cruel piece of legislation, especially to single mothers and people without health insurance, that Kos crossed Biden right off his list of potential candidates. I’m unaware of any major or medium size blogger that supports Biden’s campaign…and it really all comes back to the bankruptcy bill.
We need to make it clear that Biden disqualified himself, not by supporting the war (most of the other candidates did that), but by shafting the neediest in favor of credit card companies. As the New York Times mulls over the potential for a liberal revival we need Democrats to learn that a vote like Biden’s means political death. That is how we will move this country back to the left.
And we have to manage the aftermath of this war. As the Times says:
Even in the sweetest of times, liberals tend to be congenitally averse to walking tall, as if they’re always half-expecting to be one step away from getting decked by a falling piano.
Years of ridicule, battering and electoral defeat will do that. The liberal imprint has been trashed by generations of conservative candidates and commentators drilled in every unbecoming association (“tax and spend liberal,” “big government liberal,” “ivory tower liberal,” “limousine liberal,” “commie, hippie, purple haired, weak kneed, bleeding heart, limp-wristed, weepy eyed, take your choice liberal”).
I’m ready to walk tall. And I won’t be walking with Hillary or Biden.