Joe Biden is a good man, intelligent, experienced, and may have a very good chance of defeating Trump in 2020. But he should not be the Democratic candidate for President in 2020.
There are at least three reasons why Joe Biden should not be President. First, Joe Biden was not just against busing and affirmative action in the 60s and 70s, it’s the reason why. He saw no reason why white people today should have to pay for the suffering of black Americans over the centuries. “I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.”
The language he used in opposition to civil rights would have done George Wallace proud. Yes, he has become a strong supporters of civil rights and allied himself with Barack Obama. But in between he was also a tough on crime Democrat who said in 1990, “One of my objectives, quite frankly, is to lock Willie Horton* up in jail.” He was a proponent of legislation that led to the mass incarceration of black men.
Perhaps he has truly reformed. But a man who so consistently appealed to the racial fears of middle-class white America should not be a Democratic candidate for President.
Second was his handling, as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, of the confirmation hearings of Judge Thomas as Supreme Court Justice and the testimony of Anita Hill. Just this past Tuesday, he said that he regretted that he “couldn’t” give her the kind of hearing she deserved. How disingenuous. He certainly could have had he wanted to. But he didn’t. And perhaps even worse, he made the decision not to call other women who were waiting to testify regarding Judge Thomas’ sexual harassment. It is thanks to Joe Biden that we are stuck with Clarence Thomas sitting on the Supreme Court.
Third, while there have always been some questions about his interactions with women, a former Nevada state legislator has come forward recently with an accusation of inappropriate touching. Not groping, mind you, but nevertheless inappropriate, intimate touching. “He leaned into me from behind, inhaling my hair, and kissing me on the back of my head.” This was not an innocent peck on the cheek. And this was not 30 years ago, this was in 2014.
In response Biden said that “he did not believe he acted inappropriately,” but admitted he had made “expressions of affection” over the years. Whether he then believed he acted inappropriately isn’t the question. It’s whether he now admits that he did what was claimed and that in retrospect, by today’s standards, it was inappropriate. That’s the answer that I would have wanted from Biden, but politicians rarely admit they made a mistake, even when caught.
We have to recognize now because of the #MeToo movement how frequently women have had to submit to such unwanted behavior by men with power. It may not have been socially or politically incorrect at the time, but Joe Biden should have known better and been in greater control of himself.
Yes, Joe Biden might be able to win back the white middle-class vote. But this is not the man who should be leading the Democratic Party and be President of the United States … certainly not at this moment of time.
* Willie Horton was a black convicted murderer who got a weekend furlough while Michael Dukakis was Governor of Massachusetts, didn’t return, and committed several crimes including rape before being arrested. He was used by Republicans as an example of Dukakis being soft on crime during his 1988 presidential campaign.
