Former Vice President Joe Biden has committed a staggering streak of blunders over the past week that Democratic voters would be ill advised to gloss over. Last Saturday, I broached this topic as gently as possible, wondering at what point it was incumbent on Democratic voters to have a serious discussion about Biden's missteps. The question had arisen for me following a report that Biden had clearly been passing off a fantastical war story as "the God's truth" while many details in the story were actually incorrect. Asked about the inaccuracies, Biden argued that he was simply paying homage to the nation's courageous heroes. “I don’t know what the problem is. What is it that I said wrong?” he added.
But by Tuesday, Biden had only made matters worse, defending his tale to NPR with, "The details are irrelevant in terms of decision-making."
That proclamation seemed to lay the groundwork for the subsequent details he got wrong later in the interview about his position on the Iraq War. "Immediately, that moment it started, I came out against the war at that moment," Biden told NPR. The problem is, Biden voted in favor of authorizing military force in October 2002 and enthusiastically reiterated his support for the venture in multiple public statements over the next several years. The discrepancy prompted Slate to wonder: When did Joe Biden start believing he had opposed the Iraq War? Here's Biden on July 31, 2003, "Nine months ago, I voted with my colleagues to give the president of the United States of America the authority to use force, and I would vote that way again today." It wasn't until November 2005 that Biden finally called the vote a "mistake" and said he would have voted differently given another chance.
The rap on Biden is that he's prone to making "gaffes," and many Biden defenders have accused the media of developing a narrative that exaggerates the former Vice President’s folksy nature. He may not get everything exactly right, but his heart's in the right place and, frankly, look at the alternative.
But merely dismissing Biden's missteps as making a few gaffes here and there truly undersells the danger his routine misstatements present. Though Biden is surely not intentionally undercutting Democrats, his persistent mistakes are almost systematically robbing the party of their best arguments against Trump in the general election. First and foremost, Democrats are truthful and can be trusted to be honest. Second, Democrats are grounded in reality as the starting point for all discussion regarding governance and policy making. And third (ideally), Trump's Democratic challenger is unquestionably sane and competent above all else.
When Biden manipulates a war story and then says he doesn't think there's anything wrong with what he said, when he says "details are irrelevant" to making to good decisions, when he misrepresents his position on America's most consequential and misguided military action thus far in the new millennium, he is completely undermining veracity, precision, and sound judgment as the foundational elements of a Democratic bid for the presidency. Indeed, Biden's mix-up on the Iraq war isn't all that different from Trump's revisionist history about his initial support for the Iraq invasion in 2002.
People say, yeah, but Biden has good intentions and Trump's so much worse. True, but "our guy isn't as bad as your guy" is a terrible opening salvo in the battle to restore sanity to a country gone off the rails.
If Biden was the only choice we had, I'd be all in. He is undoubtedly better than Trump. And if he wins the nomination, I will support him 100%, without reservation. But the fact is, Democrats have several candidates who are much more precise in their communication with voters. And with each stumble Biden does not appear to be getting better; instead, he just digs a deeper hole.
One Democratic candidate who made an early mistake and recovered is Elizabeth Warren. I, like many others, questioned whether she had the mettle to be the nominee when she released her DNA test in an effort to quiet Trump's mockery of her claim to Native American heritage. The problem was twofold: it was a response to the agenda Trump had set rather than her setting her own agenda; the roll out was clumsy and clearly hadn't been properly workshopped with Democratic stakeholders and indigenous communities. But instead of digging a deeper hole, Warren worked hard over subsequent months to build bridges with the indigenous voters she upset, and she now appears to have turned that initial miscue into a strength. If she wins the nomination and Trump tries to revive his racially charged attacks on her, she will be able to turn it into a teaching moment by invoking the legislative proposal she developed in collaboration with New Mexico Rep. Debra Haaland, one of the first two American Indian women sworn into Congress earlier this year. In addition, Warren's indigenous allies will likely step up to defend her, revealing Trump's attacks to be nothing more than hollow, racially motivated slurs.
As I wrote Friday, Team Trump has taken note of Warren's resilience and it's beginning to unnerve his campaign. GOP operatives viewed Trump's offensive "Pocahontas" barb as his best shot at dealing a death blow to Warren's candidacy, which is frankly telling. In the meantime, Warren has not only strengthened her position considerably on that issue in particular, she's also blown the doors wide open on policy proposals. In fact, some Trump allies believe the rapid-fire pace at which she has released her road map for remaking American government has allowed her to set the narrative for the coverage of campaign. Trumpworld is now fretting over how overwhelmingly positive that coverage has been.
Primary season is meant to allow for a vetting of potential candidates. Not only to do voters get to see the vision a candidate is offering to the nation, they also get to watch how a candidate confronts adversity on the campaign trail. When they stumble, how well do they recover? Do they dig a deeper hole? Do they manage to stanch the wound and pivot to more positive terrain? Or better yet, do they transform a one-time weakness into a strength going forward?
Thus far in the campaign, Joe Biden has not demonstrated an aptitude for learning and getting better as a candidate. His tendency is to impugn those who rightfully question his mistakes, and those queries won't get any easier as the campaign progresses from the primary to the general. Elizabeth Warren, by contrast, has grown and evolved as a candidate and she has demonstrated an ability to define the terms by which she is covered by continually setting the agenda rather than reacting to it. That is the type of dynamism that would make her campaign particularly formidable in the general election.