Jill Biden for First Lady

Joe Biden scares me. He doesn’t scare me like Trump scares me. With Trump it’s visceral, as one might experience standing on a beach, knowing there’s not enough time to avoid the tsunami that’s barreling your way. With Joe it’s more like not knowing what your favorite uncle is going to do to screw up Thanksgiving dinner, yet knowing that screw up may lead you to the beach.

Only days before the Virginia Primary Joe had been expected to trail Bernie Sanders, perhaps even come in third behind Mike Bloomberg. Yet he ended up crushing the competition with a record setting turnout. Huh? Joe spent money in his Virginia campaign in amounts equivalent to that found in Bloomberg’s limousine cushions.

The postmortem on that contest in Virginia, and really echoed around Super Tuesday, seems to clearly point in one direction – Trump. I can’t seem to forget a young and frank reporter for The Daily Beast, Betsy Woodruff Swan, pronouncing late last year that “a potted plant could beat Trump” in November 2020. I think it stuck with me because it felt like comforting hubris from a rising generation.

After Super Tuesday, the truth in her prediction may be getting ready to land for real. The outstanding question then is the runway long enough? Enter Joe Biden, who, all things being equal, will be the Democratic nominee; his illogical cache soaring like the Tesla stock price.

Joe Biden was the presumptive favorite at the beginning of this race going back to early 2019, even before he announced he was in it. Trump also bought into it, as we all became painfully aware with the Donald’s impeachment. Biden’s name recognition was without peers in the Democratic field, better even than Bernie’s. Then the characteristics that made him unappealing in his two previous runs for the Presidency set in, with an added distraction only doddering age could enhance. He was positioned to swan dive after the Nevada primary.

Democratic moderates dominated the winnowed field by late 2019 but couldn’t put together a coherent message that could compete with Bernie’s intractable, yet colorful, ode to revolution. As competent candidates dropped out, one after the other, the electorate and Democratic Party realists started getting nervous. Those who were not excited about revolution began to think there might be something worse than a potted plant. This was especially true with African-American voters.

It’s entirely reasonable to argue that the last moderate standing, whomever, would have enjoyed the same triumph that Biden did. Biden won in states he had not even campaigned in! It certainly appears that fear drove voters to the polls; the fear of that four year tsunami headed our way. However, I’m suspecting that the fear that comes with Joe Biden might be just beginning.

Joe has been notorious for decades in his singular inability to think before he speaks. We should be used to it, right (?), and not just with Joe. There is no politician in audible recorded history that is as inarticulate as Donald Trump. Add to that his psychotic narcissism and you have someone who’s dumb meter is equally matched by his irrational confidence.  

Trump supporters know he’s dumb, many also know he’s stupid, but he’s their kind of dumb and stupid. Why? Because he’s clever enough to tap into their emotions, and that’s all it takes. Biden doesn’t have that luxury.

We know that Joe is not dumb or stupid. That isn’t necessarily a good thing. When Joe says he’s running for the Senate when he’s running for President, or shouts out “Eruf ad lowsink n give barly ovr thmens so hemtaro ephriten” during a victory speech, you could possibly be left with one uncomfortable conclusion – he’s pitifully incompetent. As a younger man it was easier to laugh through his gaffes or his speech impediments. As a Presidential candidate who will hold that office into his eighties (remember Ronald Reagan, who was constantly chided for his age, ended his Presidency at a younger age than Biden would be entering into it), such gaffes take on a different meaning.

Joe doesn’t have to do a whole lot for the Trump war machine to drown the electorate in displays of perceived incompetence. The mad dash to crown Biden with the Democratic mantle might very well end up being a house of cards…and it scares me. With each foot to mouth I hear I’ll be afraid to look down and see my feet buried in the sand. Absent that he is POTUS #46. If he manages it anyway we can only hope he announces a year from now that he will be a one term President. There is no way he could pull this off twice four years older than he is right now.

There is one thing that Biden has that gives me a real beam of hope – Jill Biden. That woman is serious business. Highly educated, sensitive, and articulate, she has in her possession both an attractive personality and appearance. I’d pit her against Donald Trump any day of the week. And poor Melania…don’t even go there. So no matter what happens, I’m voting for Jill…and I hope everyone else does as well.