Frank Bullitt writes for Issues and Insights about challenges Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden faces as he seeks a running mate for the fall campaign.
He’s getting plenty of suggestions. But just about anyone will improve his chances as long as the selection is more mentally capable than he is.
There’s no shortage of advice for the Democrat. CNN has listed “The Top 10 women Joe Biden might pick as vice president.” A media favorite is, of course, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. At least one cable host has campaigned for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. CBS reports that Biden is “challenged to pick a black woman.” Biden himself has said he’d pick Michelle Obama “in a heartbeat.”
Two things, though, we know for sure: One, Biden pledged to pick a woman. Two, he needs someone who can make up for his dismal campaign performances, in which he has the look of someone suffering from dementia and appears to be in sharp decline. …
… At the same time it appears his faculties are fading, Biden seems to have also become more combative and easier to provoke. He told an Iowa voter he was a “damn liar,” addressed the man as “fat,” and challenged him to do pushups and to take him (Biden) on in an IQ contest. He called a female college student “a lying dog-faced pony soldier” during a New Hampshire stop. He also escalated an exchange with an auto worker in Detroit over Second Amendment rights, telling the man he was “full of s—.” Biden called him a “horse’s ass,” as well, and apparently told the fellow “I’m going to go outside with you,” acting more like a drunk student in a college-town bar looking for a fight than the White House candidate who exemplifies “honesty and humility, empathy and grace.”
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