Monday, August 18, 2008

If Biden is VP, is this a good thing for DE? Absolutely.

For the most part, I have avoided commentary on the national political race (or the state ones for that matter) because whatever my comments are, at least on this particular forum, are going to be lost as white noise. Hopefully my comments regarding Sen. Biden will hopefully come across as more thoughtful than some other random rants I have seen on the internet on this topic. My own political affiliations and philosophy are disclosed below.

With rumors swirling about Sen. Biden being a potential vice presidential candidate, I think it works out much better than the media is letting on. So my point is clear, I think he's a good pick. Will he get it? That I don't know, but I think the answer is yes. At the very least, I'm sure he's in consideration for a cabinet position, which also works out well.

The reason why I think Biden will be good is not just for the wealth of his foreign policy experience, but that he's from Delaware. He will be able to make sure that whatever Obama's economic policy is, it will not fiscally bankrupt the corporate universe. That will have to make Wall Street happy. Whether the average Delawarean realizes the impact Delaware has on the rest of the country is of little consequence; my point is that Biden does, and if he does, and is VP, that means Obama does too. In other words, Delaware, and more importantly, the American economy, should be pretty safe.

Of course, the top 3% of the individual tax world will probably be screwed regardless of who the next president is because our country is on the verge of a fiscal calamity, but I would suspect the ultimate tax plan of either candidate can be massaged to protect those relevant business entities (i.e., those small business owners who are shaking in their boots over worry over how they will be taxed on their less-than-stellar earnings for FY08). Biden only helps to ensure that that in fact happens, or so that's the assumption I'm going to stew over for now. We'll find out in a couple of days of what exactly his role is going to be in this process, and whether Sen. McCain is able to effectively respond with his vice presidential candidate.

Then comes the matter of who will take over for him in Senate. That, of course, will be a much less national issue, but most definitely an interesting one. Go Delaware!

Disclosure: Politically, I am fairly conservative on most issues, particularly financial ones, and moderate on some others. In one sentence, I disfavor big government, favor state's rights, and favor minimal government interference with state's rights to the extent that the government should dictate national policy and provide guidance to the states. To the best of my understanding, that makes me a modern Reagan Republican, although most younger Democrats probably have similar beliefs (which suggests that we probably are closer to a one-party system than the partisan one that plagues the current media coverage). I am not affiliated with, nor endorse with these comments, any candidate for state, local, or national office.

That being said, I may have discussed a few months ago whether Sen. Biden should be considered for the presidential nomination
, and agreed with the majority of pundits that the answer was that he probably would not be considered, even though he was significantly more qualified than either of the then-front runners. Personally, right now I am more in favor of Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain, at the very least because he is much closer to my age. I speculate that age will be an underlying issue more than it is currently playing out, but I'll save that commentary for a more intelligent poster. If anything, watching their debate on the tv the other day suggests that one candidate is quick to respond without thinking and the other thinks about what he's going to say, but sometimes it's difficult to get the point. Is one method better or worse? Again, I'll defer that pregnant pause for someone else or another day.

1 comment:

Anonymous Delawarean said...

Now, the question I left off was whether I think he will actually get it. Probably not. But we'll see what happens.