Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Election Issues The Myths of Joe Biden

I never thought about Biden as being the ultimate Washington insider.

In the previous many years, if anyone had ever asked me to name an ultimate Washington insider, Biden's name would never have crossed my lips.

Out of curiosity here, how does one qualify to be an ultimate Washington insider? What are the characteristics of an ultimate Washington insider that make such a person inherently despicable?

There are, in my opinion, three principled actions a Citizen can take on election day.

1. One can vote party-line for a Party that adhers to its stated principles and character.

2. One can vote for an individual candidate who represents the character and principles one thinks are most supportive of one's vision of what America is -- or should be.

3. One can exercise one's responsibility as a citizen and refuse to enfranchise any current candidate with the temporary priviledge of exercising power in one's name if all are unprincipled and unworthy candidates -- assumimg one thinks that legitimate power originates with the citizen.

And please note, in refusing to vote for a supposedly lesser evil in opposition to a supposedly greater evil, one does not forfeit one's right to be critical of the one that eventual ascends to the throne.

This is usually referred to by those who wish to energize their party base as "throwing your vote away", telling you each time that "this election is too important to allow principle to stand in the way -- we'll make it up to you next time. Be patient".

How many voters still think they they will eventually catch up to that Democratic/Republican carrot?:-)
Yours,
Issodhos

How about if we call the choice the greater of two goods?

Although I disagree with McCain on many issues, I am not convinced that he is Satan incarnate.

And as far as Obama is concerned.... what I see is a guy who graduated from Harvard Law School after heading the Law review. A guy who could have leveraged this background to achieve a high level of wealth and acclaim, but instead went to work trying to help ordinary people.

When I look at Biden, I see a guy who has never moved to Washington DC and spends 3 hours per day returning to spend the night with his wife (and children when they were home). I am sure Biden is not a perfect person. But again, I have a hard time visualizing him as Satan. And, to tell you the truth, if Biden were really so very interested in being the consummate Washington insider... I think his 3 hour commute would be pretty much of a waste of time.

Now, returning to the issue of lesser of two evils. You see, many people have observed that there is a real scarcity of completely perfect people. I venture to say that if we looked closely enough, even Cynthia McKinney would also turn our not to be a perfect person.

When you get down to choosing any imperfect person vis a vie any other imperfect person... you wind up having a choice of the lesser of two evils... if you choose to phrase it that way.


You do not have to be a particularly religious person to recognize that this world rarely offers a zero evil choice.
When a zero evil choice is offered, it is likely a fraud.


Unless a candidate dies first, either John McCain or Barak Obama will be elected president. Simply put, it does make a difference.

John McCain has publicly announced his commitment to rid the world of evil. John McCain has proclaimed his commitment to nominate Supreme court Judges like Scalia.

In politics there is no escape from making lesser of two evils choices. To believe otherwise is quaint; it is, perhaps, even admirably innocent; and in this case, I think it is dangerously foolish.

One thing for sure is that Joe Biden commutes to DC everyday from Wilmington. I would think that most "insiders" live in DC.

Commuting long distances daily tends to cut commuters off from a lot of the interactions going on in the city where they work as most of the action and deal making (read: "insidering") takes place after work.

In 1993, I stayed at Representative Crane (R)-IL home in Virginia. I knew his daughter and she made arrangements for me and my then partner to "stay with daddy."

Representative Crane went home to his district that weekend.

So I hung out with Mrs. Crane. We didn't pay for food all weekend long as we ate at lobby events because the food was free and the events always had free goodies. I would think that commuting back to Wilmington daily, a lot of these lobbyist functions would be missed.

That's usually how one votes.

My Realtor laments that he "has no representation in Washington DC." All of the Congressmen in my area and our two state Senators are Democrats.

Roger sighs deeply, hangs his head in sadness and walks down the path back to the forest.

I've said this before, but that won't stop me from saying it again:

To vote for ANYONE OTHER THAN MYSELF, I *must* accept some compromise. There is no single candidate out there, other than myself, with whom I agree 100%. (Not even Dennis!)

From what I've seen of Cynthia McKinney, in some ways she is just as bad as any of them; Dennis, although I applaud so many of his positions, I doubt would actually make a reasonably effective President. (For that matter, I probably wouldn't make a very effective President either - but at least I'd be representing my interests!)

So, ANY vote, other than for my own self, is for the lesser of a number of 'evils', or the greater of a number of 'goods'.

Oh my, such drama. I'm sorry we're such a disappointment to you, Roger. I have to make the best decision for me based on what facts I have available. I'm sure I could spend gobs of time researching every candidate for every single good or bad thing they have or haven't done in their lives but, in the end, I just have to go with what my gut tells me.