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April 25th, Joe Biden threw his hat in the ring and became the 20th democratic candidate for president.
HERE ARE BIDEN’S THOUGHTS SEVERAL MONTHS AGO:
OK, that’s it, I am going to run for president again but I believe it will be best if I just let the anticipation and will-he/won’t-he debate raise expectations for a few months. I’ll let all the newbies jump in early and get a sense of what they are promising. Sometime next April seems to be about the right time to declare.
But rather than waste time, I might as well work on the first draft of my coming-out speech. And since I was this country’s number two guy for eight years, there has to be a lot I can talk about.
I COULD BEGIN WITH THE ECONOMY:
As I recall, we struggled the whole eight years to get to a 2% GDP growth. But our economists were telling us 2% was the “new normal” and we had a campaign going to convince the American people of this. It seemed to be working.
Manufacturing kept departing overseas but there didn’t seem to be any way to stop it. We were definitely moving towards a service economy. What can I say good about that? Hmmm.
The economic stability of the middle class kept slipping downward but we were doing the best we could.
The millions on food stamps set new highs every year but maybe I shouldn’t bring that up.
The problem as I see it right now is this: unemployment is at all-time lows, wages are up, the GDP is over 3% growth, hundreds of thousands of new jobs are created every month, our “identity voting groups”, like women, black Americans, and Hispanics now have jobs, are making good money and coming off food stamps by the millions.
On second thought I don’t believe the folks out there really understand economics anyway so maybe I won’t bring that up on day one. (however, I do need to make a note to myself to figure out how in the hell Trump did a total economic turnaround in his first year and maybe I can find a way for Barack and me to take credit for it.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND FOREIGN POLICY:
OK, here is familiar territory since before being VP I was chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee.
In retrospect, Barack’s 10-speech “apology tour” right out of the starting blocks may have set us back a little as all our allies and enemies were saying, “what is that all about; is the US with us or not?”
Our focus was on the Middle East. We told everyone exactly when we were going to pull out of Iraq and by golly we did it. I thought of it as our “cut and run” policy. Kind of a catchy phrase but maybe not quite right for the coming out speech. How could we possible have known that it would become the “GO” signal for ISIS?
Barack sent me to Iraq to put together a Status of Forces Agreement. What a waste of time; I just sort of blew that one off. Just because a Status of Forces Agreement has been the center piece for decades in our very successful relations with Germany, Japan and South Korea, that is no reason the think we needed one in Iraq. Or is it?
Barack and I were sure he hit just the right tone when he called ISIS, “The JV squad”. How were we expected to know ISIS would grow, carve out a country, establish a government, collect taxes, sell oil to finance expansion into 40 countries and terrorize the world?
We knew China was a key element in our foreign policy but were caught up a little short when Barack went to China and they would not provide steps to get off Air Force One. Well, any way he crawled out the back end, had his meeting with (what’s his name) the Chinese leader and lectured him about humanitarian rights.
The “red line” ultimatum we made over Assad’s use of chemical weapons against thousands of his own people, seemed really Presidential and a good idea. I still don’t understand why all our allies made such a big deal out of the fact that Assad did it again and we did nothing. What were we supposed to do, nuc em?
As I recall we had a pretty cool relationship with the Saudi King; not sure how all that came about.
Our real focus was to cozy up with Iran at any cost, literally. There was the $400 million in cash on pallets aboard what was to have been a secret middle-of-the-night unmarked airplane arrival. I thought we had that one nailed tight. If we hadn’t been caught the four American prisoners released the next day would have looked like the result of great White House diplomacy. Oh well what’s done is done.
Then someone leaked that Barack and I fixed up a deal for a $1.7 billion cash payment to Iran in a settlement of a decades-old arbitration claim. Congress was a little upset because they had not been consulted but they got over it and the press didn’t hammer us too bad. A bunch of republicans were complaining that we should not be giving billions in cash to the world’s number one state-sponsor of terrorism but we had to do something to keep them negotiating our nuclear agreement, even if there would eventually be American blood on that cash.
Ultimately, we got the Iran agreement and a lot of good press with it. But it didn’t seem to Barack and me that we could risk sending it to Congress for ratification because the loop holes may actually allow Iran to build a nuc in 12 years. But 12 years is a long way away. Maybe I should just avoid that one; after all most people just don’t understand how to conduct foreign affairs.
I believe the hands-off approach with North Korea was all we could do. How were Barack and I to know that after they nearly completed their nuclear and long-range missile testing, the NK foreign minister would stand before the United Nations Assembly and say, “a North Korean strike against a major US city is inevitable”.
Barack made a speech once about NATO nations not living up to their signed agreement to budget 2% of their GDP for defense while the US paid most of NATO funding. It was a good speech, what else could we do?
Looking back, maybe I will save my foreign affairs accomplishment for later in the campaign. Maybe I will get lucky and it won’t even come up.
IMMIGRATION:
Open borders seemed like a good policy or at the very least catch-and-release. Immigration has been at the heart of America since our founding. What’s different today? Maybe some drugs, gang members, fugitives, terrorists, sex slaves and cartel backing today but still it’s the American way. I think.
I’m sure this will be an issue but maybe I shouldn’t lead with it.
TRADE AGREEMENTS:
All the big ones, China, Europe, NAFTA, seemed to be moving along with no complaints from our trading partners. I could see no reason for Barack and me to put that on the front burner. There was the half-trillion-dollar annual trade deficit for the US but we didn’t seem to have any trouble borrowing the money to pay for it.
But, there again, maybe I should not be the one to bring it up. I’ll let one of the newbie candidates open that can of worms.
OUR SCANDAL-FREE ADMINISTRATION FOR EIGHT YEARS:
This may be my opener; we made sure the Executive Branch was squeaky clean and absolutely transparent.
Most folks have forgotten that in 2013 the IRS revealed that it had selected over 400 conservative political groups for intensive scrutiny based on their names and political themes. Anyway, I recall Barack issuing a statement that the IRS shouldn’t do that. Let sleeping dogs lie.
The Justice Department program to give guns to the cartels seemed like a good idea. It still might have worked if one of the guns had not been used to kill one of our agents. Anyway, no one was supposed to know about the program.
Also, I wish our Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, would have been a little more discrete when she met with Bill Clinton on the tarmac in Arizona at what was to have been a secret meeting. The problem was that Bill and Hillary were, at the time, subjects in an FBI investigation. Somehow not all Americans believed they just, “talked about our grandchildren.” The mainstream media pretty much gave us a pass on that one also so not a big deal.
The one that really galled me was on 5 July, 2016 when FBI Director, Comey, addressed the nation on the year-long investigation concerning Hillary’s unsecured server. He spent about ten minutes telling us in great detail how many times she violated the US Code and published some of our highest classified information in the clear. Then he concluded she was not guilty. Comey’s presentation was just too messy, unprofessional, and ill-timed because it was exactly when Barack was making speeches telling Americans “Hillary Clinton is the best qualified candidate for president in history.”
That damned Comey, if he would have nailed Hillary like he should have, she would have been forced to quit her campaign, I would have swept into the Democratic Convention and been nominated. I would be president today with Elizabeth Warren VP and wouldn’t have to go through all this again. Barack should have fired Comey that very afternoon for stupidity if nothing else.
Also, I’m thinking this campaign isn’t going to be much fun because I can’t be seen hugging all the pretty girls. In this “me to” environment someone is likely to call me on it.
That reminds me, I better think through that whole Clinton/Trump campaign thing in case the Mueller investigation doesn’t turn out the way we expect it to. We certainly don’t want anyone looking too closely at why Trump got investigated. But, not to worry, Mueller will come through for us.
Maybe we were not completely scandal free. I have a few months to think about it. Also makes me wonder what Barack is actually going to put in his library.
MILITARY READINESS:
It is always a positive to say good things about the military; greatest in the world, best trained fighting men and women, etc. Good stuff.
I doubt that anyone will go back and look at the military readiness at the end of our eight years. Is it a big deal that only three of the US Army’s 58 brigade combat teams were ready for combat? The Navy’s fleet was the smallest in nearly 100 years. Eighty percent of Marine aviation units did not have the minimum number of aircraft they need for training and basic operations. The air force is the smallest and oldest it has ever been, each aircraft averaging 27 years old and less than half are prepared to conduct combat operations.
These statistics on the military readiness were somewhat understandable after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war 30 years ago. But for this to happen while engaged in a global war on terrorism may be a hard sell. I would hate for some young whipper snapper reporter to bring up those stats in the first few days. I’ll just plan to make some military remarks later on.
Another thing to think through is my age. It is a fact that I will be a few decades older than most except Bernie during the initial part of the campaign. I need some catchy statement……let me think……maybe something like, I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponents’ youth and inexperience. Sounds great, hmmm, and a little too familiar. Maybe someone has already used that. More work to do.
HEALTH CARE:
In almost every poll, health care is always one of the top three concerns of the American people. I thought Barack and I did a good job of rolling out Obamacare with the hard sell that it would save the average family $2500 a year, allow you to keep your current health plan and keep you doctor. In retrospect some of that may have been a little over-stated; well maybe a lot overstated. In fact, none of it actually happened and health care costs for the average family skyrocketed, in some states increasing 100% a year.
But the good news on health care is that the democrats have done a fabulous job of brainwashing the American people into believing the high costs they are suffering through for health care are the fault of the Republicans because they cannot come up with a plan to fix Obamacare. The press will be with us all the way so if we just keep hammering away blaming the republicans, we should be OK. Health care may be my lead-off topic.
FAST FORWARD TO THE FIRST OF APRIL, 2019. BIDEN IS THINKING THROUGH HIS CANDIDENCY LAUNCH VIDEO.
I spent a lot of time on that first draft but somehow it seems to ring a little hollow. And after listening to the other nineteen democrat/liberal/progressive/socialist candidates, it seems the trend is to do one of three things. One, go beyond far-left with a bunch of outlandish, undefinable, unaffordable hair-brained new policies. Or two, just talk around the major issues facing America today and, in effect, say nothing. Or three, join the crowd and just attack Trump.
All that stuff in the first draft can be left for later. The objective is to defeat Trump then get on with what I really want to do as President. Irrespective of the praise Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton heaped on Donald Trump a few years ago for his decades of work helping minorities and the poor, the vocal left and the press have millions of Americans believing trump is a racist. While I have no knowledge that it is true, we can keep a full-court-press on the issue. If enough people say it is true, more will believe it and racism will take on a life of its own.
SO ON 25 APRIL, 2019 JOE BIDEN SAID: “We are in a battle for the soul of this nation.”
He joined the hatemongers of the democratic/liberal/progressive/socialist left because the bottom line is, that is about all he has to work with.
JOE BIDEN’S THINKING THIS PAST WEEKEND:
This next year is going to be a real drag arguing with all those other strange-name want-a-be candidates who are mostly clueless and don’t have a chance of getting the nomination.
SAYING TO HIMSELF: Just remember Joe, you don’t have to win every primary. You just have to do enough to get to the 2020 Democratic Convention. If my age has become too much of an issue, I will tell the attendees that I am only planning to serve four years. Also, I will ask Michele Obama to be my Vice President and she can then run and take over in 2024 for eight years. They will go crazy. It will be a slam dunk.
JOE, REMINDER TO SELF: While I’m thinking about the convention, I need to make a note to insure we have an American flag on the stage this time. I recall at the beginning of the 2016 convention The Daily Caller reported that, “It doesn’t look like there are any American Flags. The stage is bland and grey, with no red, white or blue present. A thorough look at the crowd present also turns up no American flags”.
FINALLY, IN CLOSING:
MEMO TO JOE BIDEN
Date: 26 April, 2019
From: The American People
Subject: How to Not Win
Joe, four things you need to lock into your brain and believe:
One, Americans are sick and tired of the culture of hate the Left and Media have perpetrated on us and continue to do so. Remember, those on the Right, have no one to hate. The Republicans are not a part of the hatemonger movement. If you take a deep breath, site back and be intellectually honest with yourself you will begin to understand that. The best way to, “win the battle for the soul of this nation” is to lead the democrat/liberal/progressive/socialists away from the hate culture.
Two, if you believe you can win an election by just hammering on the baseless theme that, “Trump is a racist” you will be sorely disappointed. Your cohorts and the media are doing a good job of pursuing a campaign to get millions saying, “Trump is a racist”, in the hope that the remainder will sign up to that thesis because of the brainless tactic, “If everyone is saying it, it must be true.”
Three, if you want to win you have to acknowledge that we the people are better off today than we were in 2016; much better. Then you have to convince us that you can build on that situation better than President Trump can. Lots of luck with that. If you don’t, you fail again.
Four, “third time is a charm” is just a senseless saying with no basis in fact.
Signed: WE THE PEOPLE
Marv Covault