Biden To Run

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said yesterday he plans to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 unless he decides later this year that he has little chance of winning.


Glenn Reynolds has this to say:

WITH JOE BIDEN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, we're likely to hear more about the rather lame plagiarism scandal that sunk him in 1988.

You can read a defense of Biden in that role, from my book (with Peter Morgan), The Appearance of Impropriety, if you like. I think that Biden was shafted by the Dukakis campaign, with help from the press, and that the whole flap was silly.

Biden's candidacy ought to be sunk by his sponsorship of the "R.A.V.E. act," targeting electronic music performances as havens for drugs, and by his shameless water-carrying for the entertainment industry on copyright issues. But since those are issues of substance, I suspect we'll hear more about the plagiarism story.

While Captain Ed, brain still on holiday after his atrocious tinfoil headgear speculation about the Downing Street Minutes, leads with:

Perhaps Neil Kinnock Is Writing Again. Inexplicably, disgraced former presidential candidate Joe Biden, the senior Senator from Delaware, has tossed his hat into the ring for 2008...The only notable development of the Biden campaign was the discovery that Biden plagiarized the speeches of British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair's predecessor. After the revelation of intellectual dishonesty, Biden retired from the race in shame.

Heh, way to call it Glenn!

Meanwhile, the DKos/DU pundits are outraged at Biden's seeking the nomination because he kow-towed so severely to the financiers over the Bankruptcy Bill and Pejmanesque has a post that I think is more likely to reflect the opinions of mainstream voters who don't live and breathe politics:

THAT WOULD EXPLAIN ALL OF THE SUNDAY TALK SHOWS
Joe Biden is running for President. I suspect that he will be a formidable candidate since he is easily one of the most eloquent people on his side of the partisan divide. And if foreign policy is a driving issue in 2008, many Democrats may look to him as a Hillary or Kerry alternative. On domestic policy, his eloquence may help carry the day, but I am not sure what specific and unique message he has to offer.

One place he should look for domestic initiatives is the issue of child sex-abuse. Biden has been very vocal in the past about this hidden crisis. If Biden went hard on the issue, it would attract a lot of people.

Personally, I predicted he would run several times since last October, the most recent being just last week.

It remains to be seen if my other prediction comes true and Rupert Murdoch's media outlets, especially Fox News, give him an extrordinarily soft run or maybe even support him. Ever since Biden scared Chris Matthews out of his wits during an interview on Fox News Sunday last year, they have been unusually deferential to him. Factor in Murdoch's known hatred of the religious extremist right who have their claws into just about every credible Republican candidate and it's just possible that switching allegiances makes sense for Murdoch and his empire when the Democrat they could support is hawkish but sensible, pro-big business and the only man who could outdo Dubya in the "I don't agree with him but at least you know what he stands for" straight-speaking act which appeals to the undecided voter so well. Yeah, I know it's a bit weird, but stranger things have happened. Murdoch backed a supposed socialist with similiar qualifications to Biden, one Tony Blair, over the UK's rightwing Conservative party his outlets had traditionally supported. Look who won.