J Is For..........Joe Biden

I love this guy. I just can't help it, I truly find him totally endearing. I wouldn't ever want him to ascend to the presidency, but I wish there were a way to keep him Vice President For Life. He's hilarious both when he is trying to be and when he's not. That alone sets him apart - he has a sense of humor about himself and everyone around him. He is famous for his "gaffes," which I think are just Joe being Joe. The man has no filter, what comes into his head ends up coming out his mouth, and happily for us his mouth is often in front of a microphone.

Joe is not a bumbling idiot, though. I don't think he's terribly bright, but I do think he is a very gifted politician. He has been in politics his entire adult life, holding elected office despite all the fabulous gaffes. I can think of no other person, living or dead, who could get himself chosen as running mate by a man he said was successful only because he was an "articulate and clean black man." In our day and age, that is about as racist a statement as you can make and not be publicly drawn and quartered. But Joe just smiles and moves on and everyone laughs it off. Same as his remark about every gas station being owned by an Indian person. Or his homage to what wonderful things a bunch of college cheerleaders could do "on hard wood." Sure, a lot of his lee way comes from simply being a liberal democrat, but that's not all of it. He has a certain something that makes it hard to dislike him, no matter what he says.

I think with Joe we get what and who he is. He can talk to a roomful of donors, who each paid more than the cost of my last two cars combined to attend, about how evil and terrible and dangerous to the nation rich people are. And he can do it without the slightest tinge of irony because he really believes what he is saying and because he isn't bright enough to get the irony. He survives as a politician because he doesn't ever "play the politician", he just IS one, through and through. I'm not saying he's honest, he isn't and his well documented plagiarisms prove it to all who care to know, but he is REAL. I think there's a difference.

Tonight Joe will face Paul Ryan in a debate. I can't wait to watch, just to see what Joe says. I think he'll wipe the floor with Ryan. Ryan has a much better grasp on reality and is much more intelligent than Joe. But this won't be like the last presidential debate. On that night we saw what happens when a very accomplished and practiced professional business executive debates a mediocre politician. It had little to do with the "issues" or politics, I believe. I think a left leaning businessman like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates would have given the same drubbing to a so-so right leaning career politician, like say John McCain  for instance. Tonight will be very different in that it will feature a true political debate between two politicians, and Joe Biden will make Paul Ryan look as amateur as Romney made Obama look a week ago.