President Obama's Biden Problem is going to be with him through the election. Yesterday, Jay Carney explicitly denied any possibility of Biden being replaced on the ticket. Naturally, it is the Republicans who are at fault because people are noticing what a bully and idiot Biden is. Arnie Parnes of The Hill:
President Obama has no intention of getting rid of Vice President Biden as his running mate, the White House said Thursday.
Republicans are being "ridiculous" and are trying to "distract attention" with their focus on Vice President Biden and his controversial comments earlier this week, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
"They know that what they're saying about this is ridiculous," Carney said at a briefing with reporters, adding that it's an "obvious" attempt to take attention away from policy issues.
Now that Paul Ryan is electrifying voters, the stream of gaffes from Biden are getting more attention. Rick Moran points out that his term in office has been a nonstop gaffefest, but that nobody much paid attention, until the alternative Paul Ryan presents became such a stark contrast.
Ed Klein, whose book on Obama, The Amateur, claimed on Larry Kudlow's show that sources told him
Up until just a couple of weeks ago, the White House was putting out feelers to see if Hillary would accept the vice-presidential nod and replace Joe Biden. Bill Clinton was, I'm told, urging his wife to accept the number-two slot. He saw this as a great launching pad for her for running in 2016. But, then, Hillary had lunch in the White House a couple of weeks ago with Valerie Jarrett, Michelle's best friend, senior adviser to both the first lady and the president. And she told Valerie Jarrett that she would not accept the vice-president spot. The lunch was ostensibly about other matters, but it came up. The vice-presidential thing came up. Hillary felt burned out after four years as secretary of state. But I'm told there were more important reasons for her not accepting. [...]
Number one, she felt that if she were on the ticket with Obama and he lost, she would be tarred as a loser when she tried to run in 2016. On the other hand, if she was on the ticket and he won, and he continued his far, left-wing socialistic policies, she would have to defend those policies when she ran in 2016.
Memories of the vilification of Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign are still fresh. We were told then that she was so obviously not smart enough to be president that a vote for the ticket including her as veep was just too dangerous. Subsequently, Biden has proven himself far more frightening one heartbeat away from the Oval Office than the former Alaska governor could ever be.
As for Palin's alleged stupidity, Bryan Preston points out that she has boxed in the White House:
Barack Obama had the chance to replace Biden with Hillary Clinton, a move which would have energized the Dem base. But he could not be seen agreeing with or taking the advice of Sarah Palin, who suggested that Biden's "chains" remark should earn him a firing. When Palin appeared on Fox and said that Biden should go, Obama had to keep him. Palin forced his hand.
The dummy Palin outsmarted Professor Obama once again. Heh.
While dumping Biden would be humiliating to Obama, calling to mind George McGovern's dumping of Thomas Eagleton from the ticket, David Axelrod is not ruling it out. There are all kinds of face-saving health reasons that could be cited, if the contrast becomes unbearable, and the "one heartbeat away from the presidency" concern becomes too prominent.
Hillary has every reason to sit out the campaign. There is no love lost between the Clinton machine and the Obama gang. A humiliating defeat for Obama would place the Clintons in the catbird seat of the Democratic Party.
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