PRESSING THE FLESH…AND PRESSING THE FLESH TODAY

• (Way back when, it was okay to put your hands on somebody in a kind affectionate way. Politicians shook hands, grabbed shoulders, hugged and kissed on the cheek. They kissed babies. NBD. Behavior such as this was considered appropriate and gender-appropriate then. It was a simpler time).

Joe Biden declared in an online video early this morning (04/25/2019) that he is officially launching his candidacy for president in 2020.

Nearly thirty-two years after he announced his first bid for the White House (’88) and almost a dozen after his unsuccessful quest in 2008, the former Vice President is determined not to take a third strike.

He will not be rung up; he plans to go down swinging.

“The core values of this nation…our standing in the world…our very democracy…everything that has made America — America — is at stake,” he tweeted at 6:00 AM EDT. “That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.”

In the video Biden referenced the August 2017 violent clashes in Charlottesville, VA. and placed President Trump’s response that “there were some very fine people on both sides,” directly in his crosshairs.

“With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had seen in my lifetime. I wrote at the time that we’re in the battle for the soul of this nation. Well, that’s even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation…If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen.”

Make no mistake. The thrust of the Biden campaign is to unseat Trump.

The announcement from the two-term Vice President and 40-year member of Congress — 36 as a Senator from Delaware — had President Trump’s thumbs working overtime shortly thereafter.

He tweeted snarkily, “Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. It will be nasty — you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!”

[Sporting of Mr. Trump, in politics since the rollout of his 2016 presidential campaign to advise Mr. Biden, a politician for more than half of his 76 years, of the impending onslaught of “nasty.”].

Biden’s formal entry into the Democratic primary has swelled the number of hopefuls to twenty and at the same time reshaped it, as his exposure, experience and mantra of restoration immediately make him a presidential front-runner.

But a yellow-brick road it is not nor will it be.

His rivals will take aim at his record from an earlier day in Democratic politics, one in which he opposed busing to integrate schools, authored a hard-line criminal justice bill, wrestled with his position on abortion and supported the Iraq War.

Anita Hill’s recent remarks, essentially castigating him for what she viewed as his half-baked sense of “regret for what she endured” 28 years ago during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings will not help.

(Biden as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee presided over the nationally televised hearings).

Commented Hill, “I cannot be satisfied by [him] simply saying, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you.’ I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose.”

Prominently at issue was Biden’s failure to call three or four other (allegedly) sexually harassed women as corroborating witnesses who were willing to testify before the all-male, all-white Judiciary Committee, thereby isolating Hill and critically weakening her case.

And then today of course there is the deep and passionate resonation of feminist sensibilities in a very different #MeToo world.

Add to that the recent flap over allegations of his inappropriate touching and the presumptive front-runner finds himself squarely behind the eight ball.

The party’s desire for generational change works against Biden too.

He is a septuagenarian in the winter of his political life with two failed presidential candidacies on his resume.

(In ’88 his campaign cratered in part due to allegations of plagiarism both in campaign speeches and while he was in law school at Syracuse).

The notches in his belt are well-worn.

Restraining himself rather than opting to litigate every criticism of his Senate record — not easy for one who has been described as loose-lipped and gaffe-prone — and focusing on his partnership with the country’s first black president would be a good strategy.

It has been said about the avuncular Biden that he is a bit long-winded and that he often speaks before he thinks.

Two prime examples spring to mind.

In 2008 when he was trying to describe to the masses Obama’s appeal quotient he said, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and a nice-looking guy.”

Obama charitably gave him a pass on that one when Biden apologized to him for misspeaking.

Then when Obamacare was signed into law on March 23, 2010 Biden congratulated the president by saying with a hearty handshake and a resounding clap on the back, “[y’know,] This is a big fuckin’ deal!” — into a live mic and in front of rolling cameras.

Fox News and other outlets were only too happy to jump all over it.

Rising and staying above the fray in a presidential manner and playing it safe on policy within reason, while stressing the urgency to remove Trump would serve him.

As Paul Begala, the former adviser to Bill Clinton suggests, “Don’t let the agenda stray from the argument that [you] can deliver us from Trump.”

In other words refrain from tangling with intraparty rivals trying to raise their profiles at your expense, baiting you into the endless back-and-forth and thereby obscuring your high-minded call to arms.

Biden needs his own agenda tailored to the here and now with a focus on the younger voters who don’t know him.

(Younger Democrats are a real weak spot for Biden; only 7% of those under age 40 have expressed support for his candidacy. Compare that with 24% support among the Democrat-leaning adults 40–64 and 25% support among like-minded seniors).

Appealing to voters both on policy issues and on the question of electability could favor Biden but he must compellingly carve out his position on health care, criminal justice, education, the environment, abortion…and reconfigure his image, tweaking his brand as a proud “Obama-Biden Democrat,” whatever that is.

The look of the Democratic pragmatist inclined toward bipartisanship is a nice jumping off point but real substance is demanded.

His laser-focus on the working class (buttressed by his progressive and transformative bent) would shift the underlying rules of the economic game nudging the government from the bosses’ side closer to the workers’ side.

Getting the government on the side of the working and middle-class people defines Biden, aka “Middle-Class Joe.”

He’d tell you that this moniker is whence he comes.

An Affordable Care Act proponent, he has argued strongly that health care should be “a right for all and not a privilege for the few,” yet he has stopped short of endorsing “Medicare For All” which is an important dividing line among the 2020 candidates.

Greater clarity here and elsewhere is a must and fast.

As for climate change, his advocacy for government action dates back more than 30 years when he introduced the Senate’s first climate change bill in 1986.

And now?

To begin, he must expand upon: his desire to keep the US in the Paris Agreement; his support of tax credits for renewable energy; and his support of a series of emission reduction regulations as VP.

An 83% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters, while positive may not be enough to rattle cages in the primary.

On criminal justice by his own admission, “I haven’t always been right.”

This month he said that he regretted supporting the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which increased prison sentences for crack cocaine offenses.

And one of the most contentious elements of his record was his involvement in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act signed into law by Clinton yet reviled by many Democrats for contributing to mass incarceration, particularly of people of color.

Biden worked on and voted for the bill.

More than two decades later that legislation is once again the subject of fierce debate in the face of a dramatic mood shift fueled by falling crime rates and a renewed focus on issues of racial injustice.

For Biden to win the support of young voters he must show that his views have evolved. His campaign website underscores his desire to “reform the criminal justice system…[and to] eliminate racial disparities at every stage [and] get rid of sentencing practices that don’t fit the crime.”

Voting in 1981 to allow states to overturn Roe v. Wade (the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal nationwide) as a 39-year-old second-term Democrat was what Biden then described as “the single most difficult vote I’ve cast as a U.S. senator.”

The bill never made it to the full Senate and when it came up again the following year he voted against it.

This waffling over abortion would become a hallmark of his political career.

Clarification circa 2019 is imperative where heightened scrutiny is a given in a Democratic primary race in which women are expected to represent a majority of voters.

The self-avowed middle, moderate and progressive candidate according to Ilyse Hogue, president of the abortion rights organization Naral Pro-Choice America, will “have to really get with the times and understand that standing with abortion rights is the middle, moderate position…I can’t tell you if he’s there or not.”

Biden’s position on abortion has done a virtual 180, indicating that his thinking has evolved but also representing yet another glaring example of his vacillation which could be perceived as a sign of weakness.

Joe Biden is 76 years old with a wealth of high-level political experience. He is also a white male. He can do nothing to change any of that.

He begins from a commanding position in the polls but it is unclear how much of that support will withstand the primary grind.

His surprising ability to raise money — $6.3 million in one day — suggests a measure of enthusiasm for his persistent standing atop public opinion polls.

The present reservoir of goodwill for him aside, Democrats ultimately must make a choice between someone new and someone who has been in it for decades, including in the White House.

As for the issues, he’s got to come up big.

He also must show that he can run a modern campaign, one that appeals to and mollifies the base of the Democratic Party.

His decision to make a Western Pennsylvania Teamster hall his first campaign stop shows he gets it.

Winning Pennsylvania as a Democrat is critical and to win Pennsylvania you must win Western Pennsylvania, an area with which Biden closely identifies from his childhood in Scranton.

Rich Fitzgerald, the chief executive and highest-ranking Democrat in Allegheny County commented, “It is the perfect place to kick off your race to talk about economic issues, health care, pensions and investing in manufacturing and infrastructure — bread and butter issues that we care about here in Western Pennsylvania and across the Midwest.”

And concerns that female voters view Biden negatively simply don’t fly with party activist Jackie Mikus of Presto, PA.

“I vote for the best candidate,” she remarked. “He has experience, he was an integral part of the Obama White House, he has presidential conduct, he is right on labor and he can win Western Pennsylvania.

Win here and you’re the next president. It’s that simple.”

If you can make it that far.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in April 2019.]

ADDENDA:

Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for the 2020 election.

It is widely assumed that the coronavirus has tamped down — if not out — Biden’s affinity for “pressing the flesh.”