Archive for January, 2010
Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden gave up his long-time position as Delaware’s senior Senator, and the Governor of Delaware, Ruth Ann Minner (D), picked an old political crony and senior adviser of Biden’s to replace the new Vice-President. Ted Kaufman has worked with Joe Biden for decades in Washington D.C. as Biden’s Chief of Staff, and Kaufman had already declared that he will not run for re-election.
This actually caused a bit of controversy as it was widely assumed that Kaufman was serving as a “place-holder” for Joe Biden’s son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who was considered very likely to run for the seat in the 2010 Senate election. At the time of the appointment of Kaufman, the younger Biden was preparing to be deployed to Iraq with his National Guard unit, and took himself out of the running as an appointed replacement for his father’s Senate seat.
Joe Biden has a reputation for speaking his mind, and for being fairly honest with his opinions (for a politician), and had this to say on the speculation surrounding his son and his Senate seat:
“It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden would make a great United States Senator—just as I believe he has been a great Attorney General. But Beau has made it clear from the moment he entered public life, that any office he sought, he would earn on his own. If he chooses to run for the Senate in the future, he will have to run and win on his own. He wouldn’t have it any other way.”
With Kaufman taking himself out of the 2010 election, the early betting had a Democratic primary contest between Attorney General Beau Biden and Delaware’s outgoing Lieutenant Governor John Carney. Carney lost the 2008 Governor’s primary by 1,700 votes to Governor-Elect Jack Markell. Carney had been considered as a potential Senate candidate for whenever Biden would have moved on or retired, prior to the ascendency of a potential Biden Dynasty.
In October, 2009, Rep. Mike Castle, who is a former two-term Republican Delaware governor, announced his candidacy for Joe Biden’s old Senate Seat.
In late January, 2010, Beau Biden sent shockwaves through Delaware politics, and struck another body blow to the Democratic Party’s attempts to retain control of the Senate in the 2010 Congressional Elections when he announced that he would not run for his father’s old Senate Seat.
From http://www.historyguy.com/politics/filling_biden_senate_seat.htm
Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator John McCain are very close political allies, but Lieberman is still an economic liberal, and, well, McCain is not. Their differences popped up recently as Lieberman criticized a new McCain radio ad blasting President Obama’s economic policies.
From CNN:
“In a new radio ad released Thursday, McCain takes on the record deficit spending by the Obama administration, which has defended it as an effort to pull the country out of the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression.
“President Obama is leading an extreme, left-wing crusade to bankrupt America,” McCain says in the new ad, I stand in his way every day.”
Asked about McCain’s new ad Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. Joe Lieberman said “You know, every now and then, John McCain and I disagree.”
The recent attack by al-Qaida on an American airliner seemingly caught the Obama Adminstration with it’s proverbial pants down in the public relations sense. Images of Obama enjoying his Hawaiian vacation as his cabinet secretaries and political aides responded (tardily, in my view) to logical Republican comments and concerns regarding national security and the global war against al-Qaida.
Will the U.S. respond militarily to this al-Qaida attack? Despite his recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama will most likely decide he MUST respond with some sort of overt move on al-Qaida in Yemen. Covert action will not placate the Republicans who have seized the public debate on this issue, and, after sending General Petreaus to visit with the Yemeni president, the world is also expecting some type of overt U.S. action on Yemen.
For more information on Yemen’s recent history and the wars being fought there, see http://www.historyguy.com/yemen_history_wars_politics.htm