2008 Democratic Presidential hopefuls at a debate early in the primary season. They fell one after another until it was down to two. Losers go on VP short lists. Left to right--Senator Joe Biden, Sen. Christopher Todd, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Sen. Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards, Representative Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and former Sen. Mike Gravel.
Note—Bringing the story up to date.
The election of 2008 shaped up as a referendum on unceasingly unpopular George W. Bush presidency, Democrats were favored to take back the White House after already reclaiming majorities in the House and Senate two years earlier. After Al Gore a gaggle of candidates entered the race, but conventional wisdom declared that the nomination was Hilary Clinton’s to lose. Minor candidates quickly went by the wayside or remained in the race only symbolically. Pretty boy Senator John Edwards of North Carolina and running mate of John Kerry in 2004 showed early strength running as a progressive populist but quickly faded.
The race narrowed down to a contest between Clinton and the very junior Senator from Illinois, Barak Obama who had rocketed to the national spotlight on the basis of his memorable Keynote speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention. A long and sometimes bitter primary season see-sawed between the two leading candidates. But by early summer the charismatic Obama, buoyed by heavy registration of young and minority voters surged ahead to what looked like an insurmountable lead. But Clinton vowed to stay in the race to the convention and her supporters mocked calls for party unity. After Obama became inevitable there was a noisy flurry of Clintonistas—mostly women—vowing never to support Obama in November no matter the consequences. But it turned out many of those stirring that pot were Republican plants and shills in a classic dirty tricks operation re-tooled for an era of bloggers. Most resentful Democratic women quickly got over it and showed up in droves to support Obama in November.
Obama’s Vice Presidential choice surprised many. Delaware
Senator Joe Biden was a longtime Democratic fixture who had made an abortive
run for the nomination way back in 1988 and was one of the tribe of contenders quickly eliminated twenty years later.
Avuncular and folksy he strongly connected to White
ethnic working class voters whose security
even then was being threatened by an out-migration of jobs
from older industrial communities. He had endured unimaginable loss when between his upset victory in his first Senate race and his swearing into office
when his young wife Neilia and one
year old daughter Naomi were killed and young sons Beau and Hunter were injured in
an automobile accident in 1972. A shaken Biden turned to his Catholic faith for support and became a
dedicated single parent. To maintain
a stable life for his sons with a network of family support, he kept his
full time residence in the Wilmington
suburbs and commuted each day to
Washington via a 1 ½ hour Amtrak
ride.
In 1977 Biden married teacher Jill Jacobs and began to build a new strong family as both pursued their careers. Jill went on to get a Ph.D. in education while teaching in high schools, a psychiatric hospital, and at the college level. In 1981 the Biden welcomed daughter Ashley. The unusual attention given here to the Vice Presidential candidates wife is because she quickly became the fourth member of a tightly bonded team with her husband, Barack and Michelle Obama. Their relationship on the campaign trail and continuing into office were even closer than that of the Clintons and Gore. Michelle and Dr. Jill, who became the first spouse of a President or Vice President to hold a paying job as an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), worked closely together in high profile support of children’s literacy and in support of veterans.
Sarah Palin was more than outmatched by Joe Biden in the Vice Presidential debat
On the other side, Arizona Senator John McCain, the former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in North Vietnam, finally secured the Republican nomination despite the opposition of the parties growing ultra-right who regarded his occasional departures from conservative orthodoxy as a self-described maverick made him a traitor. To shore up his shaky right wing and to appeal to those largely fictional feminists who would not support Obama shortly before the convention he made what looked like an impulsive, but dramatic choice of a running mate—Alaska Governor Sara Palin. She certainly roused the red-meat right, but her bizarre pronouncements, fractured syntax, and seemingly willful ignorance quickly made her a national laughing stock. In the end McCain’s choice called into question the basic soundness of his judgement. The rock-steady Biden, by contrast, did much to boost his Black running mate with the white working class.
Biden
was an exceptional engaged and involved partner with President Obama
especially on foreign policy. In the Oval Office in 2013 meeting with
Palestinian and Israeli negotiators.
In office, Biden maintained the close relationship. As an experienced foreign policy expert he was included in all of the highest level national security discussions and was a close collaborator with the President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Obama and Biden continued the recent tradition of regular meeting and easy access to the Oval Office. The President entrusted him with numerous special projects and commissions, including as coordinator for a national push to cure cancer.
In 2012 Biden was once again an energetic and effective campaigner in the successful re-election campaign against Mitt Romney and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, an architect of an unpopular government shutdown in a refusal to raise the debt limit. Despite predictions of a close race the Obama/Biden ticket won 332 Electoral College votes to Romney/Ryan’s 206 and had a 51–47 percent edge in the nationwide popular vote.
Biden was often mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential candidate, especially if Hillary Clinton, who delayed tipping her hand well into 2015, decided not to run. When his son Beau, then serving as Delaware Attorney General, was on his deathbed with cancer, he appealed to his father to run, and emotional Biden would later reveal. In the end he declined to run and spoke kindly of both Clinton and Bernie Sanders. But some Party leaders who became nervous that Clinton would falter or even be indicted in a minor but persistent e-mail server scandal, considered Biden a possible fall back to keep the nomination falling to left socialist/populist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. He apparently did nothing to encourage the idea.
Clinton secured the nomination but faced an irreconcilable Sanders base. Burdened by a bitterly divided party, Clinton lost, to everyone’s amazement, to a slimy real estate mogul and TV celebrity. She won the popular vote but once again narrowly lost the Electoral College.
Donald Trump tapped colorless in more ways than one Indian Governor Mike Pence as running mate to shore up his credentials with evangelical right and Christians not convinced that the twice divorced and sexually scandalous candidate was truly righteous. Mission accomplished. In office Pence became a point man against abortion rights, marriage equality, and the transgender. He also was an effective Trump surrogate loyally supporting his boss through every new scandal or word hash eruption. Although he preferred the guidance and confidence of his personal circle including daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner and his press secretary Hope Hicks over that of his official Cabinet, many of whom he distrusted, he did regularly meet with Pence and was happy enough to keep him on the ticket for his re-election campaign in 2020.
Former Veep Joe Biden finally eliminated his rivals and secured the Democratic nomination. He picked former California Attorney General and Senator Kamala Harris because he had promised to choose a woman, to shore up Black support, and because of her vigorous, prosecutorial examination of Trump officials and insiders in Congressional testimony.
Despite an unwavering base, most voters were tired of his serial outrages and antics, and swept Trump out of office on narrow wins in a handful of contested states for a comfortable Electoral College majority. Trump went into an unprecedented fit and began charging the election had been stolen and that he had been cheated. He not only refused to concede defeat he had his associates, minions, and loyal dupes launch attempt after attempt to overturn the results in swing states and made increasingly desperate suggestions that his supporters might need to rise up, possibly violently, to prevent Biden from taking office. Republicans in some states tried to avoid certifying their Electors and to substitute slates of hand-picked loyalists. One by one state and Federal courts dismissed wild law suits. Through it all Pence loyally stood by his boss until the game was almost up.
Congress was set to officially accept the December vote of lawful Electors on January 6, 2021. Trump pressured Pence for days to refuse to sign-off on the certification vote. Famously, that was a line the Vice President would not cross. He announced that he would follow the law. Trump went on the attack immediately. At a Washington street rally that day, Trump excoriated Pence and the crowd took up the chant “Hang Mike Pence!” They marched on the Capitol and laid siege to it, eventually breaking in sending Senators and Congressmen scattering to safety. The mob had brought their own gallows outside the building supposedly to hang him. Pence barely escaped to a “secure location.”
The official certification was conducted that night. Biden and Harris were inaugurated under tight security on January 20.
In office Harris did not enjoy the same close relationship that Biden had with Obama. Although always in the loop, the President did not seem to rely on her for critical decisions. She was given a more limited portfolio including the hot potato issues of border security and refugee rights. She was used as a mostly ceremonial stand in for the President internationally. She carved out her own space as the administration’s most fierce defender of reproductive rights and women’s equality.
Despite reservations by some in the Party, Harris remained on the ticket with Biden for his apparent rematch against Trump, a political vampire who wouldn’t stay dead. Outside of a loyal, but perhaps unenthusiastic base many voters were unhappy with the choices at the top of both tickets, especially as Biden’s health and fitness came increasingly into question. After a disastrous debate, the pressure built ever stronger among powerful Democrats and the public for Biden to withdraw from the race. Which he reluctantly did endorsing Harris.
Her emergence as the candidate has been met with great enthusiasm especially among women and African-Americans. Record donations poured into the campaign from megadonors and in small individual gifts. Voter registration has soared, and polls show a narrowing race with Harris showing momentum in critical swing states.
Now Harris turns to selecting her own running mate before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
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