Joe Biden, a man on the cusp of meeting his moment
Jules Witcover
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, upon assuming the presidency, will put to the test his reputation as a man who reaches across the partisan aisle to get things done.
After 36 years in the Senate and eight as Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden’s calling card to Republicans has been well known. As of now, he will have to play it early and often, with the opposition party likely continuing to hold a Senate majority and having gained House seats as the minority, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reelected to direct that opposition.
McConnell has a reputation as the chief No-man in the Grand Old Party, and he will be elevated in stature and clout if and when Trump is handed his walking papers. In immediate peril would be the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, which has been McConnell’s legislative target for years in the failed effort to “repeal and replace” the health-care law on which millions of Americans rely.
The continuing coronavirus pandemic has underscored the imperative of Obamacare, and it strengthens Biden’s political hand in the predictable fight ahead for its life or death. Biden has much at stake personally, as a prime architect and defender of the law under Obama.
Also on the table in a Biden presidency would be the former veep’s ambition to follow the example of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attack on the Great Depression that he hopes to replicate in the current economic downturn caused by the pandemic and closedown of much of the business economy.
Much was made by Trump and his lockstep supporters in the 2020 campaign of Biden’s personal working relationship, early in his Senate career, with Southern segregationists like Sens. John Stennis and James Eastland of Mississippi, although he never shared their racial attitudes.
But Biden also had a long, close and warm connection with Republican maverick Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whose dramatic late-night Senate vote for Obamacare saved it from McConnell’s effort to kill it. A Biden presidency would augur a long list of moderate-to-progressive proposals offered to gauge the effectiveness of a post-Trump Democratic administration in a divided political environment.
Although the Republican Party appears able to survive the loss of the executive branch, its heavy and seemingly blind support of Trump over the previous four years raises major questions about its own credibility as a functional part of a two-party system. A deposed Trump can be depended on to cause as much diversion and disruption as he can, as he sulks and schemes from the sidelines, if it comes to that.
In the wake of a Trump defeat, the matter of GOP leadership in a party hollowed out by his errant, undisciplined and unprincipled ways and spineless membership is itself a harbinger of continued confusion and bitterness ahead.
From the wreckage, it is hard to envision a new Republican leader of stature and experience to challenge Trump if he tries again. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah had his runs in 2012 and failed. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich broke his own spear by then endorsing Biden to the point of speaking at the Democratic nominating convention.
Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, both also-rans in the crop of losers to Trump in 2016, as well as Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ben Sasse of Nebraska and former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are being mentioned, with little enthusiasm at this early date.
So it’s hard to see now what may emerge from the nightmare of the Trump hijacking of the Republican Party and the horrible aftermath, as patient Joe Biden awaits his long-sought turn to lead.
Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books.