Despite what national polling has led us to believe, former Vice President Joe Biden is no longer the frontrunner – at least not in Iowa. He certainly lived up to President Trump’s nickname for him, Sleepy Joe, as he placed fourth behind former mayor of South Bend Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
If Joe was asleep for the Iowa caucus, he is awake in New Hampshire. The former vice president and frontrunner in the polls is turning up the heat on the competition. The Iowa caucus was, in his own words, “a gut punch.” But he came out swinging against either a Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg presidency in preparation for the Feb. 11 New Hampshire primary. And his cases against both may have merit.
Sleepy Joe Slams Socialist Sanders
After acknowledging the sting of coming in fourth in the Iowa caucus, Biden went into attack mode, targeting two of the three who bested him. Bernie got the first salvo:
“If Senator Sanders is the nominee for the party, every Democrat in America up and down the ballot – blue states, red states, purple states, easy districts and competitive ones – every Democrat will have to carry the label that Senator Sanders has chosen for himself.”
As Biden points out, President Trump would love to be able to apply the socialist label to the entire Democratic Party. He then went after the frumpy socialist for saying he had baggage. Biden referred back to his campaigning for “60-plus candidates” in 2018, saying they didn’t see him as baggage and that they wanted him in their districts.
Regardless of the validity of that claim, Biden probably wasn’t far from right when he said he doubted many of those candidates would want Bernie Sanders the socialist campaigning for them.
Biden Bites Back at Buttigieg
Joe Biden is arguably the most experienced person on the Democrats’ ballot. Not only has he been in politics longer than some of his competition has been alive, but he is also the only Democrat in the running who has already been in the White House – albeit only as second in command. In his bid to bounce back from the Iowa debacle, the quintessential old guard relic highlighted this experience – and Buttigieg’s lack thereof.
“I’ve great respect for Mayor Pete and his service to this nation but I believe it’s a risk – to be straight up with you – for this party to nominate someone who’s never held office higher than mayor of a town of 100,000 in Indiana,” Biden explained. “I do believe it’s a risk.”
Joe Biden (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Again, the old politician isn’t wrong: Pete Buttigieg wasn’t even born until nearly a decade after Biden won his first election. When it comes to experience, Mayor Pete’s eight years leading South Bend is nothing compared to Biden’s eight years in the White House and 36 years in the Senate.
He Isn’t Wrong – But He Isn’t Right
Joe Biden’s attacks on Sanders and Buttigieg are hard to refute because they’re absolutely true. Buttigieg has only a microscopic fraction of Biden’s experience, regardless of whether that’s a problem. Sanders is an open socialist, whose nomination to lead a party he doesn’t even claim could serve as an official rebranding toward socialism.
While Biden – or the Godfather of Gaffe, as Liberty Nation’s Jeff Charles calls him – wasn’t wrong in his claims, he still ain’t quite right. From the plagiarism scandals that plagued his two previous presidential campaigns to the more recent instant classics, such as forgetting what state he’s in, biting his wife’s finger during a campaign stop, or saying that poor kids are just as smart as white kids, Joe Biden really is an odd duck. And let’s not forget how Biden earned the Creepy Joe moniker. His behavior around women has kept meme creators fed for years.
He argues that neither Buttigieg nor Sanders is the president America needs – but is he really a better option?
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