The choice of Senator Biden as the Vice-Presidential nominee of a candidate running on the shaky platform of “change” simply staggers the imagination. Joseph Biden is sixty-five years old and has served in the U. S. Senate since first winning election in 1972. Thus, he has been in the Senate for more than half of his life, spending more than a full generation in that august body. Biden certainly should be mentioned along with Kennedy, Byrd, Young and a few others as United States Senators for life. His permanent residence in the upper legislative chamber, known as “The World’s Most Exclusive Club” clearly mocks Obama’s promise of change.
The Senator from Delaware also enjoys a cozy relationship with lobbyists and lawyers, two groups that Obama has loosely identified as part of the problem in Washington today. Biden has accepted over five million dollars in contributions, from attorneys and law firms, since 2003. He has also drawn substantial campaign support from credit card agencies, the real estate industry, and lending and financial institutions, all of which should merit careful scrutiny in this age of upheaval in the mortgage sector of the economy. Hunter Biden, the Senator’s son, is a registered Washington lobbyist and a partner in a D.C. lobbying firm who has worked the system to secure earmarks for various legislators, a practice which Senator Obama has publicly denounced.
In Senator Biden’s defense it should be noted that his own Presidential ambitions crashed in 1987, and while he briefly campaigned for the Democratic nomination last year, he was widely seen as a longshot candidate with little chance of winning the nomination. Therefore, he did not expect that he would face questions concerning his comfortable relationships with the legal/lobbyist subculture. He can expect these questions now, and in very short order.
Senator Biden is an officeholder who has served his Delaware constituency well. He is, however, a man who has earned barely a dime in the private sector, who has become, after thirty-six years in the Senate, the consummate Washington insider and is quite at ease with most of the time honored D.C. rituals many Americans find distasteful. Moreover, Biden’s senior partner running mate has condemned many of these same practices.
Senator Obama has gained momentum with his shrewdly calibrated call for change. He has stated, in fact, “We are the change we have been waiting for”. Now that the Senator has announced his choice of running mates the American voter must ask: Is Joe Biden the change we have been waiting for?