What Biden brings

Sen. Barack Obama is obviously looking at his own real or perceived weaknesses and going after the strengths Sen. Joe Biden brings to his campaign. What does he get in Biden?

Experience in Washington and in foreign policy.

Polls have consistently shown voters trust Sen. McCain more than Sen. Obama on foreign policy and national security issues.

“Biden talks about foreign policy the way the rest of us talk about baseball,” said Larry Rasky, a longtime political adviser to the Delaware senator. “He lives it and breathes it.”

Sen. Biden also has been a fixture for a generation on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he developed a reputation as a staunch partisan in some of the earliest and most vitriolic battles over the Supreme Court. As chairman of that panel, he presided over the controversial confirmation hearings of conservative jurists Robert Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991. (He voted against both. Judge Bork’s nomination was defeated. Justice Thomas was confirmed).

I recall clearly Biden’s performance – which some network anchors joked about, Biden got so verbally animated – in the Senate confirmation hearings for both Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Which is another thing Obama gets, a running mate well known to be verbally animated.

That will be a staple of Republican attacks in coming days. About 6 a.m. Saturday, the McCain campaign released a 30-second television it said would air in key states, that opens with Sen. Biden being asked about comments he had made saying Sen. Obama wasn’t ready to be president. “I stand by that statement,” he said. It then shows a separate television clip of him praising Sen. McCain.

That’s already airing, and it is effective.

Another possible weakness in the Biden pick: The verbose lawmaker is known for regular verbal gaffes that prompt him to retract them. Last year, when he announced his presidential candidacy, Sen. Biden’s comments about Sen. Obama made news when he referred to the Illinois senator as a “clean” African-American. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Biden said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” Stunned by the reaction to his comment and clearly embarrassed, Sen. Biden quickly issued an apology, both to Sen. Obama and the public. At a candidate forum shortly afterwards, Sen. Obama said he was convinced that Sen. Biden meant no offense by the statement.

Time recalled that gaffe as the lead in its piece on Biden.

The day Joe Biden officially launched his 2008 presidential run in February of 2007, he virtually ended it with a classic Biden gaffe — this one involving the man on whose ticket he’ll be a part of in the race for the White House…Although Obama brushed aside the comment, other prominent African-Americans and much of the Washington political class came down hard on Biden.

“Much will be made” of that comment in the coming days, Time says, but they turn Biden’s reputation for animated attacks into a plus. 

Most of all, where Obama is reserved and cautious in a political knife-fight, Biden comes out swinging. Tapping Biden is a signal that the Obama campaign is ready for a battle — and to take the risks that come with it. 

Actually, Obama’s camp has been swift and strong in swinging back at the McCain camp, so that’s misleading. But on to more important issues.

Obama also needs help with key voting blocks such as Catholics and white, blue-collar swing voters. Biden ranks with Ted Kennedy among the Senate’s best-known and longest-serving Catholics.

Let’s look at that, because we’re going to be hearing that a lot in the coming weeks.

Barack Obama’s chosen runningmate, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, is a Roman Catholic who would become, if elected, the first Catholic vice-president of the U.S. Like many Catholic elected officials in the U.S., he runs afoul of church teachings on abortion rights, but cites church teachings on a variety of social justice concerns. His selection is likely to rekindle the debate over whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should receive Communion.

This revives the issue of the Catholic divide, between those who ‘run afoul of church teachings’ and interpret them to fit a liberal view of human rights and social justice…..and those whose public actions are informed by Church teachings on all matters of human rights and peace and justice.

Sen. Biden openly embraces his Catholic faith. But…

According to Project Vote Smart, Biden voted with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America 100 percent of the time in 2006. He differs from the Catholic Church’s leaders in other areas as well — he initially supported the Iraq War (although he has since become a critic), he opposes a federal ban on same-sex marriage (although in 1996 he supported the federal Defense of Marriage Act), he supports the death penalty and he has supported embryonic stem cell research.

Fundamental to that record is his position on the right to life, before discussing the morality of war or the definition of marriage. Because arguments over the rest of the issues of the day don’t hold up coherently if they aren’t premised on all rights stemming (as it does in the Constitution) to the right to life. Which is what the Church teaches.

The piece looks at the Catholic divide, and cites this press release today by Fidelis, though it only cites a couple of lines. Here’s more:

Fidelis warned late last month that a pro-abortion Catholic choice as a vice presidential candidate would offend many Catholics who have struggled with the scandal of prominent pro-abortion Catholic politicians like Senator Biden.

Fidelis President Brian Burch commented, “Barack Obama has re-opened a wound among American Catholics by picking a pro-abortion Catholic politician. The American bishops have made clear that Catholic political leaders must defend the dignity of every human person, including the unborn.  Sadly, Joe Biden’s tenure in the United States Senate has been marked by steadfast support for legal abortion.”

Obama is hoping Biden brings the Catholic vote. However…

“Now everywhere Biden campaigns, we’ll have this question of whether a pro-abortion Catholic can receive Communion. Senator Biden is an unrepentant supporter of abortion in direct opposition to the Church he claims as his own. Selecting a pro-abortion Catholic is a slap in the face to Catholic voters,” said Burch.

The Catholics Biden will attract are more in the camp the Boston Globe piece quotes next, the group called Catholics United.

“Senator Biden’s well-known commitment to his Catholic faith has inspired his advocacy on issues such as genocide, universal health care, education, workers’ rights, and violence against women.

(There are those, especially involved in South Dakota’s sweeping task force report, who believe that abortion is violence against women. Including organizations of women who have suffered from abortion. But back to Catholics United…) 

We are optimistic that Senator Biden’s history of seeking practical means of addressing abortion will help move our nation beyond the divisive, acrimonious, and unproductive debate that has come to surround the issue.

(What makes it divisive, acrimonious and unproductive would make for a good examination.)

Senator Biden accepts his church’s teachings on human life and can work to advance these teachings in ways that Americans of all political persuasions can support.

That’s a contradiction. If Sen. Biden accepted his church’s teachings on human life, he could not support abortion.

Catholics United is especially hopeful that operatives on the far right will refrain from using Senator Biden’s faith and the teachings of the Catholic Church as political weapons in the coming campaign. Faith and values should be used to unite Americans behind solutions to the key challenges of this age – war, poverty, lack of health care, and a looming climate crisis – and not as partisan wedges to divide voters.”

What about operatives on the far left? Catholic operatives, among others on the religious left (that we hear little about in the media) use the teachings of the Catholic Church as political weapons. It’s the bishops who apply those teachings as the basis for morally informed choices in public life, as Fidelis points out.

Biden’s own bishop, Bishop Michael Saltarelli of Wilmington, Del., has said that the issues pertaining to the sanctity of human life are the “great civil rights issues of this generation.”
 
Bishop Saltarelli denounced the notion that politicians can ‘personally oppose’ abortion, but refuse to pass laws protecting the unborn.

“No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’ Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: “I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena,” said Bishop Saltarelli.

Faithful citizenship. Here’s more. Now that we have a Catholic vice-presidential candidate, it will be a good reference source from now to election day.