Proposition Joe

    Proposition Joe was one of the characters of the HBO series “The Wire”. Proposition Joe would always try to appease  the opposition. Proposition Joe predictably took a dirt nap when he was no longer useful to his rivals.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_Joe

    Proposition Joe came to mind when I heard Joe Biden tell us how Republicans would come to their senses and work across the aisle once Trump was out of office. Did Biden not take notice of what Republicans did before Trump was in office?

    John Boehner

    “We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”

    Mitch McConnell 

     “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

    https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311

    It is like Biden was asleep for the entire Obama Presidency. 

    I really don’t care about Biden and the 1994 crime bill. I am concerned that he still doesn’t get his offensiveness in the Clarence Thomas hearings. Along with his failure at the hearing, Biden completely ignored the warnings that Clarence Thomas would be a hardliner on abortion.

    Even before Anita Hill went public with her sexual harassment allegations, women’s rights groups were convinced that Clarence Thomas was bad news. 

    “The record shows that if confirmed, Judge Thomas would indeed vote to take away this fundamental right [to abortion], to take this nation back to the days when women had no alternative but the back alleys for health care,” said Kate Michelman, the director of the National Abortion Rights Action League

    Michelman and other reproductive rights advocates testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 1991, urging the panel composed entirely of white men to think about what effect Thomas would have on abortion access if confirmed to the Supreme Court.

    They faced skepticism, however, from someone who could have been a key ally: Joe Biden, who was then a Democratic senator from Delaware and was chairman of the committee.

    “I did not find anywhere in the record on that issue where he evidenced extreme views ― where he said ― where he, on the face of what he said, as anything extreme or an explicit endorsement,” Biden said to the women who testified on Sept. 19, adding that they showed a “failure of logic” in coming to such a conclusion.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-clarence-thomas-abortion_n_5cfe9742e4b02ee3477b0c50

     

    That was then, this is now. We have seen candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris work on policy. Joe Biden gives us Noun...Verb...Obama. How could he be preparing for a Presidential run and not have analyzed his stance on the Hyde amendment?

    https://progresspond.com/2019/06/06/joe-biden-has-wounded-himself-with-hyde-amendment-decision/

    However it looks like the flip flop may have gained him voters.

    A recent Morning Consult/Politico poll found some voters appreciate Biden’s change in attitude: 31 percent of those voting in a Democratic primary or caucus said they were more likely to vote for the former vice president following his reversal on the Hyde Amendment. In contrast, 19 percent said they were less likely, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,991 registered voters from June 7 to 9. Biden had switched his stance on June 6. 

    The shift was especially pronounced among black and Hispanic voters: 18 percent of white voters said they were more likely to vote for Biden after his shift, in comparison to 28 percent of Hispanic voters and 27 percent of African American voters.

    https://www.vox.com/2019/6/11/18661393/democrats-biden-abortion-rights-hyde-amendment-2020

     

    Biden is leading in polls of African Americans 

     

    A new poll has shown what we all feared—fine, maybe it’s just me—but black folks, at least the ones polled, have declared that Vice President Joe Biden is the frontrunner out of all the Destiny’s Child members that make up the Democratic nominees vying to become president.

    Some “seventy-six percent of African American Democrats who answered the survey said they are enthusiastic about Biden, while 16 percent said they had some reservations or felt uncomfortable with his candidacy,” Politico reports. 

    The poll (pdf) notes that Biden is holding enthusiasm numbers with blacks while other Democratic nominees continue to make inroads when focusing on pocketbook issues that are of major concern to black voters. 

    While Biden is leading the Black Economic Alliance poll, “the next closest candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, drew enthusiastic views from 64 percent of black Democrats, but 28 percent said they had some level of discomfort with him,” Politico reports. 

    Both Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), garnered 53 percent and 43 percent of black Democrats, respectively

    https://www.theroot.com/new-poll-shows-that-black-voters-favor-former-vice-pres-1835415672

    Biden May be the guy, but I’m still lacking in feeling the Joe-Mentum

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Comments


    Obama era staffers think Biden’s belief that he will be able to work with the GOP is in error.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/obama-veterans-joe-bidens-pledge-to-work-with-gop-is-delusional?ref=scroll



    Biden tells rich donors that they will be protected 

    Former Vice President Joe Biden told a roomful of well-heeled donors on Tuesday night that he would not “demonize” the rich if he’s elected president in the 2020 election. “I need you very badly,” he told the group.

    Addressing the 100 or so guests at a fundraiser at the swanky Carlyle Hotel in New York City, Biden said he’d gotten into hot soup with “some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side” for his earlier comments about rich people being “just as patriotic as poor people.”

    That’s “not a joke,” he said. “I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.” 

    Appearing to suggest that his tax plan would not include excessive taxes on the rich, Biden said “no one’s standard of living change” if he’s elected. 

    “The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change,” he said. 

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-wont-demonize-the-rich_n_5d09ac63e4b0f7b74428e4c6

     

     

     

     


    Joe reminisces about the “good old days” with segregationist Senators

    Joe Biden raised eyebrows on Tuesday night by citing his experience with two segregationist senators to call for more “civility” in politics. Speaking at a fundraiser in New York City, the 2020 Democratic front-runner said he had served with Sens. James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both Democrats who opposed desegregation, and still managed to find compromise with them despite disagreements. “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden said, before imitating a Southern drawl. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’” “At least there was some civility,” Biden continued. “We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.” “Folks, I believe one of the things I’m pretty good at is bringing people together,” he said. This is not the first time Biden has invoked his past experience with Eastland. While campaigning for then-Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones in 2017, Biden shared a story in which he recalled “[Eastland] never called me ‘senator.’... He called me ‘son.’”

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-biden-segregationist-senator-never-called-me-boy

    (NYT link has a firewall)


    Just to be clear, here's the NYTimes version of which your Daily Beast quote has edited out a sentence that adds clarity:

    “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Mr. Biden said, slipping briefly into a Southern accent, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”

    He called Mr. Talmadge “one of the meanest guys I ever knew, you go down the list of all these guys.”

    “Well guess what?” Mr. Biden continued. “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”


    This is surprising because it used to be so common for racist southerners to call white men "boys."


    If Biden was so good at bringing people together, where was he during the Obama years? To win a Republican seat no, you are pretty much a full blown wingnut. Look at the pushback Amash received. He is as right wing as it gets, but he is the enemy when he challenges Trump. I think we are going to need a fighter, and that may rule Biden and Booker out.

     


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