There is a Politico piece out that addresses the rising unpopularity of Vice President Joe Biden. The gist of the article is that pundits are flummoxed by the Veep’s sinking polls and the apparent inability to tie his predicament to any particular event.
A series of recent polls reveals that Vice President Joe Biden’s popularity has significantly declined over the past year, lagging well behind President Barack Obama’s and even his recent vice presidential predecessors.
His predicament is stumping pollsters and has experts wondering what, if anything, the erosion in his numbers reveals about the public’s feelings toward Biden and his expanding role or if it is simply exaggerated by Obama’s stratospheric popularity and the dismal state of the economy.
In a comparison of average vice presidential favorability ratings compiled by Gallup, Biden is less popular than both Al Gore and Dick Cheney were in their first year in office.
That comparison to Cheney will surely send the Left and Biden into spasms of fear and loathing. The humor in that scenario is worthy of a book but, as this is a post about the Gaffematic, I’ll reduce it to much less.
Joe Biden has several problems. The first one is credibility. He signed his name (along with Christina Roemer) to a famously wrong estimate of how the stimulus legislation would hold unemployment below 8.5% for the mere price of one trillion dollars in government pork. After several months of 300,000 plus newly jobless voters it’s no shock that some have begun to read the small print in what they were sold.
Oblivious to the rapidly increasing economic crisis, Biden did what he does best: he uttered a totally insane comment that the Stimulus Legislation was working better than the administration’s wildest expectations.
Then there was the advice Biden offered on the Today Show, where he advised his own family members to stay off commercial airlines because of swine flu concerns. Delta, American and U S Air surely appreciated that on air plug.
One of the Politco’s most interesting theories is that the Veep is wilting in the cosmic heat by virtue of its proximity to the Obama Star. This last example is perhaps the most enetertaining because of its embarrassing (and revealing) confusion of cause and effect. With thirty six years in the Senate under his belt, it’s ironic that Joe Biden decided, at the apex of his career, to hitch a ride with the brightest political flash in the pan Washington has seen in a century. Somewhere in the Vice President’s residence there must be an argument raging about these topics:
- Feb. 2007 on Obama’s appeal: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean that’s a storybook, man.”
- Aug. 2007 on Obama’s experience: “I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.”
- Aug. 2007 on Obama’s threat to go into Pakistan after Al Qaeda: “The way to deal with it is not to announce it, it’s to do it. . . . The last thing you want to do is telegraph to the folks in Pakistan that we’re about to violate . . . their sovereignty.”
- Aug. 2007 on Obama’s pledge to meet with leaders of rogue nations: “Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was president? Absolutely, positively no.”
- Sept. 2007 on Obama’s Iraq plan: “My impression is he thinks that if we leave, somehow the Iraqis are going to have an epiphany. I’ve seen zero evidence of that.”
The Education of Joe Biden…that sounds like a good book title. Why I Wish I Had Never Met Barack Obama may sell better in 2010.
