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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Herb Rothschild Jr.: Making sense of UCC ... Police giving away trick-or-treat bags ... Ashland author memorializes slain UCC professor in poem ... Herb Rothschild Jr.: Making sense of UCC ... Police giving away trick-or-treat bags ... Ashland author memorializes slain UCC professor in poem ... COMMENTARY Jeffrey Gillespie: Dems contemplate Biden time Comment DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Sep. 11, 2015 at 12:01 AM Posted Sep. 11, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News With Hillary Clinton sliding in the polls, power players in Washington (as well as rank-and-file, voting Democrats across the country) are beginning to think the unthinkable: what if Hillary Clinton fails to live up to expectations as the anointed nominee of the party come 2016? As such, the establishment is quietly starting to groom Vice President Joe Biden as the natural choice should Secretary Clinton fail to deliver. Biden has long been seen as a champion of blue-collar America; a humble man who often rode the train from Deleware to Washington when Congress was in session. He has overcome major tragedies in his life (the death of his first wife and young daughter in a car wreck in 1972, and then of his son Beau, who died just a few weeks ago of brain cancer) which cast him as a sympathetic figure to many. There is genuine fondness for Biden in Washington DC, as well. Even among the most hard-boiled politicos, he is considered a kind and collaborative presence, a man of integrity and character. He knows the Washington scene inside and out, having spent over 40 years in Washington, the entirety of the last number of them in close contact with President Obama, at the center of the capture and killing of Bin Laden, a major economic recovery, and as a key voice in the Cuban and Iranian negotiations. He is well known to global leaders, many of whom simply call him “Joe”. However, there are doubts as to whether Biden is up to the task of leading the country. He is famously blunt, which can be a plus when you’re sitting on a congressional committee, but might get him into trouble if he’s voicing an opinion from the Oval Office. He is 72 years old, which may be young by the Strom Thurmond standard of the Senate, but puts him well into Reagan territory as a first-term president. He is widely perceived to be less aggressive than Hillary, and it's true — Biden simply doesn’t have the go-for-the-jugular, bloody-fanged political thrust that the Clintons are famous for. More cynical members of the political press are suggesting that the only reason Biden is being considered is as a sacrificial lamb for the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. With Bernie Sanders, the self-declared socialist senator from Vermont, climbing in the polls (some recent ones have put him ahead of Clinton), there is a suggestion that Joe offers the perfect image of the mainstream version of what a “man of the people” should look like, and that if he does win the nomination, he will be handled and managed by pollsters until he starts to look like a weak, flip-flopping version of his true self; a strategy that would be very problematic if he ended up facing Donald Trump in a presidential debate. Despite all of Hillary’s flaws, she would not be one who could be pushed around by Trump or anyone else; Biden may be seen as too reticent and gentlemanly in an all-out brawl. The real risk for the left is that, as a free agent, Biden might say something bizarre and un-presidential on the national stage. If he’s over-managed, he could end up looking like another Kerry or Dukakis; a parsing wet blanket of a candidate who is no match for the red-meat rhetoric of his Republican rival. GOP operators, armed with populist talking points and strong strategic initiatives (not to mention billion-dollar war chests from major conservative contributors like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers), are waiting gleefully for their moment to strike. With Hillary on the ropes and Sanders an unlikely possibility for most mainstream voters, good ol' Joe is the perfect candidate for the Democratic Party to do what they have often done before — take a solid foundation and a winning streak and turn it into a crash-and-burn disaster. Jeffrey Gillespie's writing has appeared in the Santa Fean and Art Collector magazines, the Portland Mercury and Willamette Week. He lives in Ashland. DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Sep. 11, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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