Feb 10, 2020

February 10, 2020: Pony Soldier, Dead Man Walking, Pick The Carcass




You're a lying, dog-faced pony soldier”

              ----former Vice President Joe Biden



Yes, he said it. In a scene that has now 'gone viral', Joe Biden has once again insulted one who may very well have voted for him.

It has become an all-too-frequent occurrence out on the campaign trail as Biden, frustrated and angry, lashes out at those who brave the cold and the night to turn out and demonstrate their support.

That his supporters are now few and full of labor has cruelly revealed in last week's Iowa Caucus where the intrepid presidential wannabe is finding this campaign cycle the same as his two previous trips through the washing machine. The results are still being contested, with Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg in a virtual tie for first place, but the real story was the winnowing of the Democratic field that Iowa produces. In this case more than half a dozen presidential hopefuls had left the field before the first citizens showed up at caucus sites. Then Iowa delivered a near fatal blow to Biden and his rational for being in the race in the first place. With nearly all the votes counted, Biden is mired deep in fourth place in the Iowa results and the polls coming out of New Hampshire are not more encouraging.

The truth is that Biden a dead man walking. He is the ghost of the old DLC, a shadow of a figure about which the tattered remnants of the old order have chosen to rally about.

And the first one now
will later be last
for the times they are a-changin”

The polls from New Hampshire have Biden running in a close third to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and the Biden campaign is now in full panic mode. Staff has been reshuffled, ads have been pulled from Nevada and South Carolina, the candidate is running out of money as the big time donors his campaign relies upon are now hedging their bets.

Biden has never been a political thoroughbred, not the horse one would bet on at the derby, indeed not the kind of horse that has any business being at the track. His long congressional record, voting for the war in Iraq, supporting credit card companies, repeal of Glass-Steagal, pushing for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, supporting the Telecommunications act of 1996, his deplorable handling of the Clarence Thomas hearings...not much of what he declares to be 'accomplishment' resonates with those who must vote to choose a standard-bearer of this party.

But all that is secondary to the overriding fact that Joe Biden is simply an awful candidate. To put it bluntly, he just isn't very good at campaigning.

There are many examples of Biden, when questioning his record, of telling those who have turned out to meet him to vote for someone else. There is a splendid little video of Biden calling a supporter a god-damned liar, when he had the temerity to ask the former Vice President, what his son was doing in Ukraine. Revealingly, Biden didn't answer the question. He simply cursed at the man in his audience and walked back toward the podium. It was an ugly scene.

This weekend, Biden, his campaign unraveling before his eyes, had this exchange with a woman from Georgia who, as a student, finds herself participating in the New Hampshire campaign. According to Yahoo News this exchange took place:

Manchester (United States) (AFP) - Former US vice president Joe Biden drew criticism Sunday after he called a woman a "lying dog-faced pony soldier" at a campaign event in New Hampshire.
In an exchange that was widely shared on social media, 21-year-old Georgia college student Madison Moore asked the presidential hopeful to explain his poor performance in the Iowa caucus last week.

"It's a good question," replied Biden, whose status as national frontrunner for the Democratic nomination was shaken by a damaging fourth-place showing in Iowa's caucuses.
"Have you ever been to a caucus?" he asked the Mercer University student, who nodded.
"No, you haven't," Biden said. "You're a lying, dog-faced pony soldier."

Biden's campaign press secretary Remi Yamamoto tweeted the comment was a joke: "It's from a John Wayne movie and he's made it plenty of times before." (1)

As Moore pointed out, it doesn't matter if she had ever been to a caucus. Biden's campaign, as Clinton's before him is predicated on the proposition of electability. Nothing about his record recommends him to the assembled, he even fabricates a civil rights involvement more than fifty years ago that simply does not exist. Like Clinton, his only justification is electability, and that facade was shattered in Iowa.


Biden has always had a tin ear. He has always been out of sync with the Democratic electorate. He was the DLC before the Clinton's created the DLC. He has always been a Republican-in-drag who has never resonated. Now as he writhes in agony in the snows of New Hampshire, he lashes out at the dwindling few who come to bear witness to his passing. By South Carolina, he will be toast.


And, as the mossbacks of the party begin casting about for an alternative to Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg waits in the wings ready to pick the carcass of Joe Biden clean. 

____________

1. https://news.yahoo.com/biden-jokingly-calls-woman-lying-145401374.html

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