Biden seeks to connect the dots

[PatSeg]

Interesting article from the Boston Globe that captures Biden's unique way of addressing the issues.

Biden seeks to connect the dots

By Sasha Issenberg, Globe Staff

AMES, Iowa �- The few questions from the moderator at a "Growing the Bioeconomy" conference at Iowa State University Monday night all had to do with the seemingly narrow issue of how to modernize agricultural production.

But when it was Joe Biden's turn to answer, he started talking about the shoddy state of American infrastructure, the efficiency of foreign ports such as Hong Kong, the trade gap with Asia, and the uncompetitiveness of US manufacturing.

The Delaware Democrat's seeming meander across the policy landscape was not an example of senatorial self-indulgence or his own legendary long-windedness, as much as of an increasingly distinctive approach to policy questions. Biden's complex answers often feature more movable parts than his Democratic rivals', usually reaching beyond the typical issue categories such as economic policy, foreign policy, and trade policy."

Eventually he came to a novel point: one of the reasons American goods don't sell abroad is that having to reach foreign markets via outmoded domestic infrastructure can make them unduly expensive.


snip


Biden's answer �- which managed, in a few logical steps, to link crumbling highways to shuttered factories �- did not turn on a supposed trade-off as much a Rube Goldberg-like chain of cause and effect.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/11/biden_seeks_to.html