What I learned watching Bernie and Biden for hours on end
Politico
Biden is a creature of the Senate. Sanders is a creature of the campaign trail. Seeing them back to back in these two settings clarifies the choice.
By RYAN LIZZA
01/30/2020 05:12 AM EST
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Though hes adjusted the pitch somewhat to respond to critics, the heart of Bidens speech still includes a paean to the old Senate where relationships matter more than anything else and whats most important is to never, as he puts it, question a colleagues motives, only their judgment. Biden even quoted columnist David Brooks about restoring Americas moral fabric. On Wednesday, he added a specific criticism about the dangers of attacking a fellow legislator as being, for example, in the pocket of an industry. Once you get personal, he insisted, the deals cant get done.
This is the flip side of Sanders flaw. Sanders eschews relationships and deal-making to a fault, while Biden fetishizes them to a fault. Sanders, according to Hillary Clintons recent harsh assessment, is someone that nobody likes and nobody wants to work with in the Senate, but in Iowa he has raucous crowds and actual rock stars campaigning for him. Biden is a beloved figure among Democrats in the Senate and has trouble rousing an audience in Iowa.
In the midst of an impeachment trial that is about a plot to define Biden as personally corrupt in the pocket of big Ukraine! Bidens argument about relationships sounded hollow. He seems to recognize this. In Council Bluffs, Biden quickly pivoted to a perhaps more effective pitch about how the Republican Party was trying to destroy him because it believes he could beat Trump.
Theyre trying to smear me to stop me, he said. This time the crowd applauded.
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