Joe Biden's national polling means nothing

Should we dismiss Joe Biden because of national polling that suggests "47% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say they support Clinton for the party's nomination," while only 14% support Biden? We should not.

[I]n hypothetical general-election matchups in all three [critical swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio], Vice President Joe Biden performed as well or better than Clinton against the top Republican candidates.

If Joe would just get in the damn thing, we'd see that national 14% grow closer to Hillary's 47 — and then, who knows?

In March 2007, the same polling organization (CNN/ORC) had "37 percent of registered Democrats" supporting Clinton, "while 22 percent named Obama." As late as December 2007, according to Gallup, "45% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents [said] they support her for the nomination. Twenty-seven percent of Democrats support Obama."

A couple weeks later, Obama walked away with Iowa. And Clinton, as I predicted the next morning, was doomed. (Make sure you read the comments. Many are quite amusing. It was probably about then that I lost those commenters as readers.)

 

Comments

[RT]

You know Obama's habit of waiting, waiting, waiting, until his allies are screaming "Why won't he act?", then acting at a well-chosen moment? I'm hoping that has rubbed off on Uncle Joe and he's just Biden his time.

[Jason]

Now let's be fair, you did totally whiff on Romney. ;-). But good call on Obama vs. Hillary. I saw Obama speak in Tallahassee in October 2007, and I remember thinking, "That's the one."

[Jason]

Oh wait, my bad. For some reason I had it in my mind that Romney was the 2008 candidate. They all kinda run together (in more ways than one).

[Bob]

It's too early to pay more than passing attention to polls. That aside, all the speculation about Joe's run has a suspicious air of political media over-inflation. Not that any solid conclusion can be drawn, but it has too many easily interesting and emotional story elements.

[Peter G]

I wouldn't mind seeing Biden run. Joe Biden is a decent man. And when I see what the Republicans call a deep bench I think the Democrats can outshine the lot. Joe would add to the distinction.

[Peter G]

The first time I saw young Obama speak he was delivering a keynote convention speech.His oratorical skills blew me away. But then I thought Edwards had a better chance for 2008 and Obama had insufficient experience. Never have I been more wrong or thankful to be proven wrong.

[Anne J]

It must have been the one he gave at the 2004 democratic convention? That was the first time I saw him speak . In that moment I knew he was going to be president someday soon and thank goodness I was right.

[Anne J]

Joe Biden has always been my first choice for the job, but at least on the dem side, the other choices don't make you want to run screaming into the arms of insanity, either. That would be on the republican side once you get past the Donald. It's too bad he's such a distraction from what the other candidates who have a better shot at the nomination would do if they won. And now they're dancing to his beat, on his terms, wealthy donors and tv talking heads be damned.

[Josh]

Don't do it, Joe. Don't do it. Please.

Superb VP-- one of the best ever to hold the office (probably top five, given some of the non-factors and forgettables to be VP). Bad campaigner, terrible runs in both 1988 and 2008. Not sure which was worse.

Don't do it, Joe.

[David & Son of Duff]

Obama: "His oratorical skills blew me away".

You mean that eye-stabbingly tedious reader of tele-prompters who is not only incapable of reading several sentences on one breath, he can't even manage a single clause - without pausing - looking left intently - reading another clause - pausing - then looking right - intently - and then reading the next clause - whilst we all snore!

"Oratorical"? You don't know the meaning of the word.

[Peter G]

Quite a lot of people seemed to disagree with you David. Including almost everyone who watched that speech and many he has delivered since. You are certainly entitled to your own opinion. And I can't tell you how much I value your opinion. But the reason I can't tell you that is because your opinion does not register on the finest setting of any scale I know.

Currently the only politician, (stretching the meaning of the term0, that I know who does not use a teleprompter seems to be Donald Trump. Would he, by any chance, be your gold standard of oratorical elegance?

And for God's sake man, if you wish to address someone, use the reply button. It can't be that hard to figure out.

[The Dark Avenger]

David is one of those Conservatives who couldn't tell chalk from cheese unless he did a taste test.

[shsavage]

Of course, the British reaction to the Gettysburg Address was less than complimentary as well. “The ceremony was rendered ludicrous by some of the sallies of that poor President Lincoln. Anything more dull and commonplace it would not be easy to produce.” - London Times

So perhaps we should simply take the opinions of our distant cousins with the grain of salt they so richly deserve.

[David & Son of Duff]

I didn't really wish to address you, Peter, I was simply responding with a specific critique of a (very) generalised claim.

By any standards, Obama is a hopeless orator. From the few speeches I have watched (never to the end - life is too short!) his 'technique' is abysmal. It's obvious that he has made little effort to learn or even familiarise himself with the text, hence his incessant pauses. Even an amateur actor like me could do better than he does.

But I forgive you, Peter, after all, he was telling you what you wanted to hear so your critical facilities, such as they are, were dormant.

[David & Son of Duff]

@Shs: And nor was the reaction of the Democrat-supporting Chicago Times:

"The Democratic-leaning Chicago Times observed, "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States."

May I loan you some salt, 'Shs'?

[The Dark Avenger]

What color is the sky in your world, David?

[shsavage]

Well, you've betrayed your ignorance of American political history once again. Perhaps a wee bit of research would be in order. It might inform you that the major political parties have completely switched positions since the 1850's birth of the GOP. Or perhaps not, as learning from history seems out bit out of your reach these days.

[RT]

A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

[Peter G]

Of course you could just read the Gettysburg address or listen as it is read by anyone with the voice for it. And then you could form your own opinion as I have. And I consider it a work of genius. Now I could cite the opinion of Edward Everett the man who was considered to be among the foremost orators of his day, and the man who spoke for two hours before Lincoln spoke for about ninety seconds but I'll let David look up what he said.
My larger point is that those people locked in bubbles are absolutely incapable of forming their own opinion. They must cite someone else's opinion as critique of anything rather than offer their own for they have none of their own. Our friend David seems to suggest above that he has some expertise in oratory or rhetoric though this writings do not support it.

I would bet my last dollar that David, asked to offer an example of first rate oratory, would cite Winston Churchill. And not without reason, for Winston, armed with a written speech to read from was exceptional. He did not use a teleprompter for it was not invented. He used an actor.

[David & Son of Duff]

@ Shs: No point ever knowingly missed, eh, 'Shs'? I don't care what party the newspaper was supporting, I merely quoted their reportage based, I assume, on someone who was actually present.

@ Peter: There you go again, Peter, leaping ahead of the conversation without reading what was written. Let me spell it out for you in simple terms:

1. In my opinion Obama is an atrocious public speaker and his speech writers are even worse! None of his speeches will be remembered in the future.

2: The Gettysberg Address, in my opinion, begins as a simple and straightforward speech suitable for the occasion. The second paragraph raises the emotional pitch and it ends with a phrase of brilliance.

3: How it sounded on the day, I have no idea, and nor do you! Several witnesses were even less polite than the Chicago Times.

4. Please, Peter, do not fall for that twaddle about Churchill using an actor. He did on *one* occasion, much later in the war, because he was asked to record his most famous speech for the British Council in New York. He had rather more important matters to attend to and the actor Norman Shelley undertook the role much to Churchill's amusement!

5. The two most well-known perpetrators of the myth that actors delivered Churchill's speeches were David Irving, a well-known holocaust denier; and Clive Ponting, a rat-fink civil servant who leaked secret papers on the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands war in order to blacken his country's name.

6: Churchill, unlike Obama (and most other politicians these days), **wrote his own speeches**. They were passed round for comments and criticisms and changed (or not) accordingly. But he wrote 'em and he delivered 'em - quite badly sometimes, according to reports, not least because he would keep a cigar stuck in his mouth!

[The Dark Avenger]

David, I have some training in the theater and public speaking. Cultural differences aside, Obama is pretty good at public speaking, and the best example is to be found in the recent speech he gave at the memorial service for a man killed by the cops. Now, if you don't like the churchy parts of that, I could see that, but otherwise your insistence that he isn't even a good speaker suggests a tin ear on your part, or mere partisain pique at the worst on your part.

I like Patton's speech to the Third Army, which he prepared and memorized because of a learning disability on his part, oddly, enough. I'll put it up against anything Churchill ever wrote before, during, or after the war.

All the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters. Every single man in the army plays a vital role. So don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells and turned yellow and jumped headlong into a ditch? That cowardly bastard could say to himself, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' What if every man said that? Where in the hell would we be then? No, thank God, Americans don't say that. Every man does his job. Every man is important. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the quartermaster is needed to bring up the food and clothes for us because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last damn man in the mess hall, even the one who boils the water to keep us from getting the GI shits, has a job to do.

Each man must think not only of himself, but think of his buddy fighting alongside him. We don't want yellow cowards in the army. They should be killed off like flies. If not, they will go back home after the war, goddamn cowards, and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men.

One of the bravest men I saw in the African campaign was on a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were moving toward Tunis. I stopped and asked him what the hell he was doing up there. He answered, 'Fixing the wire, sir.' 'Isn't it a little unhealthy up there right now?' I asked. 'Yes sir, but this goddamn wire has got to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?' And he answered, 'No sir, but you sure as hell do.' Now, there was a real soldier. A real man. A man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty appeared at the time.

And you should have seen the trucks on the road to Gabès. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they crawled along those son-of-a-bitch roads, never stopping, never deviating from their course with shells bursting all around them. Many of the men drove over 40 consecutive hours. We got through on good old American guts. These were not combat men. But they were soldiers with a job to do. They were part of a team. Without them the fight would have been lost.

[Peter G]

You would be wrong about Churchill's speeches. Several of the BBC recordings are easily provable as not being in his voice. The current state of technology makes voice identification rather easy. I knew that would get under your skin regardless. And that is its own reward.

[Dark Avenger]

There was also a recording found as well:

PROOF THAT some of Winston Churchill's most famous radio speeches of the war were delivered by a stand-in has emerged with the discovery of a 78rpm record.

The revelation ends years of controversy over claims - repeatedly denied - that an actor had been officially asked to impersonate the Prime Minister on air.

The record makes it clear for the first time that Norman Shelley's voice was used to broadcast some of the most important words in modern British history - including 'We shall fight them on the beaches'. It is marked 'BBC, Churchill: Speech. Artist Norman Shelley' and stamped 'September 7, 1942'.

The recording will also help to sort out the confusion about the authenticity of many of the Churchill tapes in circulation.

Shelley, a well-known radio actor who was Colonel Danby on The Archers before his death in 1980, first claimed in the late Seventies that the British Council had confidentially asked him to stand in for Churchill.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/oct/29/uknews.theobserver

Too much Merlot, before dinner, perhaps?

[David & Son of Duff]

@ DA: DA, darling, we must compare our theatrical histories one day - it'll bore this lot to sleep! The "cultural differences" you refer to are very important. To my English ear, Patten's speech is illiterate, by which I mean that it lacks any literary nuances. That is not to say that it wasn't dead right for the audience he was addressing. It is also, and I'm surprised a good ol' Leftie like you didn't pick it up, somewhat fascistic:

"We don't want yellow cowards in the army. They should be killed off like flies. If not, they will go back home after the war, goddamn cowards, and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men."

Is he hoping for a 'super race', do you think?

@ Peter: No, Peter, I would *not* be wrong about Churchill delivering his own speeches (with the one exception I noted) and the calibre of the two men most closely associated with that canard should be enough even for a chap like you, burdened as you are with all your prejudices! And do let me assure you that your little efforts do not get under my skin which is, I assure you, as thick as a rhino's!

@ DA & Peter: I am beginning to worry that you two cannot read very well. I will cut and past what I wrote **yesterday**:

"4. Please, Peter, do not fall for that twaddle about Churchill using an actor. He did on *one* occasion, much later in the war, because he was asked to record his most famous speech for the British Council in New York. He had rather more important matters to attend to and the actor Norman Shelley undertook the role much to Churchill's amusement!"

Honestly, conversing with you lot is like trying to talk to a room full of Alzheimer sufferers!