December 20, 2007

Q&A with Joe Biden
The veteran campaigner
By Brian Early bearly@hippopress.com

Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful, is Delaware’s longest-serving senator, having taken office in 1973 at age 30 and been reelected five times, most recently in 2002. He chairs the foreign relations committee in the Senate and is a member of the judiciary committee. Biden also ran for president in 1988 but eventually lost the nomination to former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Biden spoke to the Hippo by phone from Iowa, where he was campaigning.

Q:What’s the one thing you would do as president if elected?
Reestablish the trust and respect that the United States once had with the rest of the world.

How would you do that?
I would literally in my inaugural address announce to the United States and to the world that I was going to reestablish the United States as a beacon of hope for people, and by that I would announce that we are going to abide by the Geneva Conventions, that no torture would take place under my administration, that I would abandon the president’s definition of torture being only if there is organ failure or death. I would commit that there would not be a single prisoner rendered to a country that engages in torture. I would shut down Guantanamo Bay, which I’ve been arguing since 2005. I would basically reestablish the single most damaging thing that the president has cost us, and that is, the respect of the rest of the world.

It seems that you’re having a struggle in your campaign, your poll numbers aren’t doing well. According to New Hampshire Presidential Watch, you’ve spent the least amount of time of all the major Democratic presidential candidates in the state. What’s the strategy with limited resources in this campaign? Is it to pick a spot and focus on that with the hope that a win there will give your campaign legitimacy elsewhere?
What’s happened, if you notice, every candidate is spending a disproportionate [amount of] their time in Iowa — every candidate. The reason for that is as the candidates with the money have moved to push up the big states to blunt New Hampshire and to blunt Iowa, it’s made those states much more important. The only thing that stands between a semblance of a democratic process in the presidential primary is Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s the only place you can still be without having amassed tens of millions of dollars. Because if every other state were required, you couldn’t do what I do Iowa and in New Hampshire, you couldn’t do that in Pennsylvania or in New York or in Texas, California, Illinois, Florida — because in those states, it gets down to wholesale politics and 30-second ads. So I’ve spent a fair amount of time in New Hampshire; I’m surprised to hear you say that I’ve spent the least amount of time here. But the bottom line here is that unless the candidate from the Democratic nomination comes out of the Iowa caucuses exceeding expectations, he’s going to be at a real disadvantage going into New Hampshire and probably will be out of the race, period. If John Edwards does not win Iowa, he’s said he’s out. If Hillary Clinton were to come in third or second even, she would be badly damaged in terms of the biggest thing she has going for her — and she’s a very talented person — which is inevitability. That would knock the pins out from under her. If Barack Obama came in third after spending $20 million out here like Hillary, it would be all over as a practical matter. So each of us have to go through the sieve of Iowa. One of the Republican candidates said, there are four ways out of Iowa: win, place, show and freight. In the last election, John Kerry was doing worse in New Hampshire than I’m now doing in New Hampshire at this time. John Kerry was fifth in New Hampshire and fourth in Iowa. He won Iowa and had a 19-point turnaround in New Hampshire seven days later. For me it’s about not electability in the general election or capability — although people could legitimately question both — it’s more about viability. All of us out [in Iowa] are investing a fair amount of time. I think the thing that changed it so much was the big states moving themselves up leapfrogging over Iowa and New Hampshire, and now here we are with a new situation with campaigning on New Year’s in Iowa.

What do you make of the fact that you, one of the most experienced candidates in the race, [aren’t] doing well in the polls? How does that affect your campaigning?
The polls are irrelevant. Name me a time when they ever been accurate. Ever. Ever. Unless you have a sitting president seeking a nomination. [The New Hampshire] polls show that as recently as a month ago … 70 percent of the people in the state haven’t made up their mind. In Iowa, the Des Moines Register newspaper just did a major Iowa poll. It showed that [of] all the people who say they are for Hillary, 50-some percent say they could change their mind. Of all the people who for Obama, it’s 50-some percent. The same with Edwards. There is no decision-making process here yet. If you read the press out here, whether it’s true or not, they say … that the guy with pace on the ball now, where there’s a little buzz about, is Biden. Our internal polls show us in the mid-teens out here and showing the other candidates in the low to mid 20s. People are now literally just making up their minds. [ABC News’] Charlie Gibson was here a week ago, and he was interviewing me and he did an event. He walked into a packed room and said, “Everybody who’s made up their minds raise their hands.” Three people raised their hands. Three. So this is still wide open, but it’s going to close down very quickly after Iowa and New Hampshire. If you don’t come out of Iowa and New Hampshire one or two or a very close third, this thing is over.

In 2004, you supported a bi-partisan presidential ticket with then Democratic nominee John Kerry possibly selecting John McCain as his running mate. Would you support one in this election?
When I was asked, John Kerry was considering McCain, and I was asked would I support him picking McCain, and I said yes, I would, because the same thing is going to occur now, not necessarily with the vice president. We have to end this Blue and Red divide. This false partitioning in the United States based upon such a partisan, partisan divide. It’s not healthy for the country. I would have leading Republicans in my administration. There are a number of people who would qualify for that. [Indiana Republican Senator] Dick Lugar would make a great Secretary of State. I would pick people who shared my view on the subject on which I was asked to participate. I think the country is yearning for unity. I don’t buy the argument that there is a fundamental divide. I don’t think the woman raising two kids in Nashua has any different aspirations than a woman raising two kids in Lafourche, Louisiana. I think it’s a false dichotomy that both parities have promoted in order to have political gain. I think it makes sense to reach out and to reach across the aisle.

—Brian Early