Biden"s Uphill Road to 2016

His Republican foes branded it the “2016 Kickoff Tour” and vice-president Joe Biden made it clear to the people of “my native town, Scranton” that he hopes to build a White House campaign on tales of his humble upbringing in Pennsylvania coal country.

After recently seeming to bolster former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s credentials to be his successor, President Barack Obama went out of his way to give a boost to his No 2.

Their joint appearance on Friday was also significant because coming from a place such as Scranton, an archetype of blue-collar America, is the modern equivalent of growing up in a log cabin.

“This was a signal that [Obama’s] not playing sides,” said Ed Mitchell, a long-time Democratic consultant in Pennsylvania.

“He wanted to be there together with Biden so that people didn’t think that because he’d had lunch with Secretary Clinton and said nice things about her on 60 Minutes that he was favouring her.”

Obama said at Friday’s rally to promote an initiative to make college more affordable that the “reason that I love Scranton is because if it weren’t for Scranton, I wouldn’t have Joe Biden”.

Noting that it was exactly five years since the “special day” that he selected Biden as his running mate, Obama piled on the praise. “It was the best decision that I ever made, politically, because I love this guy . . . and he’s got some Scranton in him,” he said.

Biden grinned broadly, perhaps imagining the campaign commercial that could be crafted from the event. “I tell you, it’s good to be home,” he said, of the city his family moved away from 60 years ago, when he was 10. Scranton was a place “where your heart stays” and where “community, hard work, personal responsibility, faith, family” helped to sustain the American dream.

As vice-president, by rights Biden should be Obama’s heir apparent and in pole position to be the next Democratic choice for the top job. The last occupant of the post to seek his party’s nomination for the White House and fail to land it was Alben Barkley in 1952.

Clinton, however, is viewed as the overwhelming Democratic favourite if, as expected, she chooses to run. A Public Policy Polling survey last month gave her a 59-point lead over Biden in first-voting Iowa. The 1952 analogy is not auspicious for Biden. Barkley was considered too old for the presidency — he was 74, the age Biden will be in 2016.

Supporters of Clinton are quick to point out that she is five years younger than Biden and only Ronald Reagan has been as old as 74 when elected, and that was for his second term in 1984. They also note that in 2008 Biden said that Clinton “might have been a better pick than me” for vice-president.

Biden does not even have the upper hand over Clinton in his birthplace, in part because she also has deep family connections there. Her great-grandparents came to Scranton in the 1880s from Wales, her grandfather worked as a boy at the Scranton Lace Factory and her father is buried in the city.

And while Obama’s words might have seemed an imprimatur, few in Washington will take them at face value. While Obama likes to portray Biden as “the scrappy kid from Scranton who beat the odds”, in large part this is to trade on Biden’s appeal to blue-collar whites, who have been slow to warm to the president’s aloof manner.

Biden’s blunders are legendary, and eagerly recounted by Republicans. The garrulous former senator for Delaware, who served in Congress for 36 years, once told a wheelchair-bound state senator: “Stand up, Chuck — let ’em see you.”

In his book This Town, a dirt-dishing account of the insider world of politics that has become a summer must-read in the American capital, Mark Leibovich describes Biden as “the lovable rodeo clown of the administration”, someone Obama talked about “with a patronising over-fondness — as if the VP were the beloved family dog that kept peeing on the carpet”.

Biden’s two previous runs for the White House were spectacular failures. In 2008, his folksy, long-winded style failed to resonate and he dropped out after securing just 0.9% of the vote in Iowa.

In 1987 he was forced to withdraw when it was revealed that he had plagiarised a speech by Neil Kinnock, then Labour party leader.

He also spoke then about “my ancestors who worked in the coalmines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours”.

It turned out that no known forebears had been miners. A great-grandfather he had thought had been a miner turned out to have been a university-educated engineer.

Steve Corbett, a local radio host, said that Biden was “privileged” in Scranton terms and was not quite the “working-class hero” that he purported to be. “A Biden presidential campaign will be like watching Benny Hill reruns,” he said. “Our Joey will be predictable — he’ll be as stale as a day-old sausage roll and cheeky in his own goofy way.

“In the eyes of most Scranton Democrats, Hillary Clinton has earned the presidency. Bill Clinton is much loved in Scranton and campaigned for Obama here on the eve of the election last year. Her brothers have a family cottage 20 miles away. If you face off with a Hillary-Joe Biden deal, then Hillary’s going to walk all over him.”

Joe Trippi, a veteran Democratic operative who ran Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004, said he did not believe Biden would take on Clinton but it was possible that something unforeseeable might make her decide not to run or leave her weakened.

“He only has one more opportunity at this,” he said. “He’s got to go all out. But he’s a realist and in 2008 he understood very early how the cards were dealt.” 

RealClearPolitics – Articles

Biden"s Uphill Road to 2016

Voters mad about NSA spying face uphill battle

President Barack Obama leaves after his news conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The president said he’ll work with Congress to change the oversight of some of the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance programs and name a new panel of outside experts to review technologies. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama leaves after his news conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The president said he’ll work with Congress to change the oversight of some of the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance programs and name a new panel of outside experts to review technologies. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Buy AP Photo Reprints

WASHINGTON (AP) — Charlotte Scot isn’t one to take things lying down — like the time President George W. Bush was re-elected and she moved to Canada in protest.

So when the 66-year-old artist from Old Lyme, Conn., heard that major telecommunications providers have been turning over data about every Americans’ phone calls to the government since 2006, Scot demanded that her own phone company tell her what, if anything, it had shared about her.

She soon received a non-response from an unnamed customer service representative informing her how to opt out of its marketing program, which only made Scot angrier.

“Dear Anonymous,” Scot fired back in an email, “I have always opted out of all advertising emails. … However, my question was not about advertising. It was about what information AT&T turns over to the federal government and NSA. I appreciate an answer to this question.”

AT&T eventually responded with a link to its privacy policy and a promise that, while it doesn’t comment on matters of national security, “we do comply with the law.”

Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about government invasion of privacy while investigating terrorism, and some ordinary citizens are finding ways to push back. They are signing online petitions and threatening lawsuits. Like Scot, some are pressing their providers to be upfront when data is shared with the government, which federal law allows as long as the person isn’t being investigated under an active court order.

The question is whether these anti-surveillance voters will be successful in creating a broader populist movement. Many lawmakers have defended the NSA surveillance program — a program Congress itself reviewed and approved in secret.

And unlike the anti-war effort that rallied Democrats during the Bush administration, and the tea party movement that galvanized conservatives in President Barack Obama’s first term, government surveillance opponents tend to straddle party lines. The cause appeals to libertarian Republicans who don’t like big government and progressive liberals like Scot who do but favor civil liberties. Together, these voters would have little in common otherwise.

Another complication is the potential of another terrorist attack. One spectacular act and public opinion could flip, much as it did after 9/11, back to favoring government surveillance. Politicians know this, with many of them opting to blast the Obama administration for not being more transparent but most opposing an end to broad surveillance powers.

“If in fact something happens, you’re basically putting yourself in a position to look like you didn’t do something when you should have. And that’s got to be in the back of their head,” said Ed Goeas, president of the Tarrance Group in Alexandria, Va., a Republican survey research and strategy company.

That leaves voter-activists like Scot with little to work with, even with midterm elections next year that expose one-third of the Senate and every member of the House.

“I don’t believe it’s going to be a driving issue” in the upcoming elections, Goeas added. “It’s got to be the total picture” on national security that appeals to voters.

At issue is whether the government overstepped its bounds when it began collecting and searching the phone and Internet records of Americans to gather information on suspected terrorists overseas. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released late last month found that Americans are divided over whether they support the surveillance programs revealed earlier this year, but most Americans — 57 percent — still say it’s more important for the government to investigate terrorism than to put privacy first.

Like their constituents, lawmakers too are divided. Last month, a House proposal that essentially would have made the NSA phone collection program illegal failed in a 217-205 vote that didn’t fall along party lines. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California were among the 217 who voted to spare the program.

In the Senate, a small group of lawmakers — namely Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. — is taking a stronger line in favor of civil liberties. But progress has been slow, with few co-sponsors joining their legislative proposals to limit NSA spying powers. Meanwhile, such influential senators as Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have defended the program and said Edward Snowden, who leaked details of the NSA programs, is guilty of treason.

Doug Hattaway, a Washington-based Democratic strategist, said the reluctance by most lawmakers to take sides isn’t surprising, considering that most Americans say they want both security and privacy.

“I don’t see Democrats benefiting from joining forces with libertarians,” he said. “If voters are looking for balance, I wouldn’t hop on the bandwagon with Rand Paul.”

Another challenge for surveillance foes is that industry isn’t exactly fighting back. Technology and phone companies often say they are prohibited from divulging details about government surveillance requests, but that’s only partially true. Federal law prohibits alerting customers when they are surveillance subjects as long as a court order remains in effect. But not all gag orders last forever.

So when AT&T wouldn’t tell Scot whether her information had ever been shared with the government, chances are that’s because it didn’t want to — not because it couldn’t.

AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris declined to comment on Scot’s case in particular or matters of national security. “We value our customers’ privacy and work hard to protect it by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects,” he said.

Meanwhile, Scot says she can’t understand why other customers are not just as angry. She’s now looking to switch providers, and has downloaded a mobile application called Seecyrpt that offers encrypted phone calls for $ 3 a month. But she knows it’s unlikely that a majority of Americans will follow her lead.

“I’m just one of these people who gets riled about things,” she said. “People are like sheep.”

___

Follow Anne Flaherty on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnneKFlaherty

Associated Press

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

U.S. Headlines

Voters mad about NSA spying face uphill battle

Voters mad about NSA spying face uphill battle

WASHINGTON (AP) — Charlotte Scot isn’t one to take things lying down — like the time President George W. Bush was re-elected and she moved to Canada in protest.

So when the 66-year-old artist from Old Lyme, Conn., heard that major telecommunications providers have been turning over data about every Americans’ phone calls to the government since 2006, Scot demanded that her own phone company tell her what, if anything, it had shared about her.

She soon received a non-response from an unnamed customer service representative informing her how to opt out of its marketing program, which only made Scot angrier.

“Dear Anonymous,” Scot fired back in an email, “I have always opted out of all advertising emails. … However, my question was not about advertising. It was about what information AT&T turns over to the federal government and NSA. I appreciate an answer to this question.”

AT&T eventually responded with a link to its privacy policy and a promise that, while it doesn’t comment on matters of national security, “we do comply with the law.”

Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about government invasion of privacy while investigating terrorism, and some ordinary citizens are finding ways to push back. They are signing online petitions and threatening lawsuits. Like Scot, some are pressing their providers to be upfront when data is shared with the government, which federal law allows as long as the person isn’t being investigated under an active court order.

The question is whether these anti-surveillance voters will be successful in creating a broader populist movement. Many lawmakers have defended the NSA surveillance program — a program Congress itself reviewed and approved in secret.

And unlike the anti-war effort that rallied Democrats during the Bush administration, and the tea party movement that galvanized conservatives in President Barack Obama’s first term, government surveillance opponents tend to straddle party lines. The cause appeals to libertarian Republicans who don’t like big government and progressive liberals like Scot who do but favor civil liberties. Together, these voters would have little in common otherwise.

Another complication is the potential of another terrorist attack. One spectacular act and public opinion could flip, much as it did after 9/11, back to favoring government surveillance. Politicians know this, with many of them opting to blast the Obama administration for not being more transparent but most opposing an end to broad surveillance powers.

“If in fact something happens, you’re basically putting yourself in a position to look like you didn’t do something when you should have. And that’s got to be in the back of their head,” said Ed Goeas, president of the Tarrance Group in Alexandria, Va., a Republican survey research and strategy company.

That leaves voter-activists like Scot with little to work with, even with midterm elections next year that expose one-third of the Senate and every member of the House.

“I don’t believe it’s going to be a driving issue” in the upcoming elections, Goeas added. “It’s got to be the total picture” on national security that appeals to voters.

At issue is whether the government overstepped its bounds when it began collecting and searching the phone and Internet records of Americans to gather information on suspected terrorists overseas. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released late last month found that Americans are divided over whether they support the surveillance programs revealed earlier this year, but most Americans — 57 percent — still say it’s more important for the government to investigate terrorism than to put privacy first.

Like their constituents, lawmakers too are divided. Last month, a House proposal that essentially would have made the NSA phone collection program illegal failed in a 217-205 vote that didn’t fall along party lines. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California were among the 217 who voted to spare the program.

In the Senate, a small group of lawmakers — namely Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. — is taking a stronger line in favor of civil liberties. But progress has been slow, with few co-sponsors joining their legislative proposals to limit NSA spying powers. Meanwhile, such influential senators as Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have defended the program and said Edward Snowden, who leaked details of the NSA programs, is guilty of treason.

Doug Hattaway, a Washington-based Democratic strategist, said the reluctance by most lawmakers to take sides isn’t surprising, considering that most Americans say they want both security and privacy.

“I don’t see Democrats benefiting from joining forces with libertarians,” he said. “If voters are looking for balance, I wouldn’t hop on the bandwagon with Rand Paul.”

Another challenge for surveillance foes is that industry isn’t exactly fighting back. Technology and phone companies often say they are prohibited from divulging details about government surveillance requests, but that’s only partially true. Federal law prohibits alerting customers when they are surveillance subjects as long as a court order remains in effect. But not all gag orders last forever.

So when AT&T wouldn’t tell Scot whether her information had ever been shared with the government, chances are that’s because it didn’t want to — not because it couldn’t.

AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris declined to comment on Scot’s case in particular or matters of national security. “We value our customers’ privacy and work hard to protect it by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects,” he said.

Meanwhile, Scot says she can’t understand why other customers are not just as angry. She’s now looking to switch providers, and has downloaded a mobile application called Seecyrpt that offers encrypted phone calls for $ 3 a month. But she knows it’s unlikely that a majority of Americans will follow her lead.

“I’m just one of these people who gets riled about things,” she said. “People are like sheep.”

___

Follow Anne Flaherty on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnneKFlaherty

Associated Press

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Top Headlines

Voters mad about NSA spying face uphill battle

Voters mad about NSA spying face uphill battle

President Barack Obama leaves after his news conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The president said he’ll work with Congress to change the oversight of some of the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance programs and name a new panel of outside experts to review technologies. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama leaves after his news conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The president said he’ll work with Congress to change the oversight of some of the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance programs and name a new panel of outside experts to review technologies. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Buy AP Photo Reprints

WASHINGTON (AP) — Charlotte Scot isn’t one to take things lying down — like the time President George W. Bush was re-elected and she moved to Canada in protest.

So when the 66-year-old artist from Old Lyme, Conn., heard that major telecommunications providers have been turning over data about every Americans’ phone calls to the government since 2006, Scot demanded that her own phone company tell her what, if anything, it had shared about her.

She soon received a non-response from an unnamed customer service representative informing her how to opt out of its marketing program, which only made Scot angrier.

“Dear Anonymous,” Scot fired back in an email, “I have always opted out of all advertising emails. … However, my question was not about advertising. It was about what information AT&T turns over to the federal government and NSA. I appreciate an answer to this question.”

AT&T eventually responded with a link to its privacy policy and a promise that, while it doesn’t comment on matters of national security, “we do comply with the law.”

Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about government invasion of privacy while investigating terrorism, and some ordinary citizens are finding ways to push back. They are signing online petitions and threatening lawsuits. Like Scot, some are pressing their providers to be upfront when data is shared with the government, which federal law allows as long as the person isn’t being investigated under an active court order.

The question is whether these anti-surveillance voters will be successful in creating a broader populist movement. Many lawmakers have defended the NSA surveillance program — a program Congress itself reviewed and approved in secret.

And unlike the anti-war effort that rallied Democrats during the Bush administration, and the tea party movement that galvanized conservatives in President Barack Obama’s first term, government surveillance opponents tend to straddle party lines. The cause appeals to libertarian Republicans who don’t like big government and progressive liberals like Scot who do but favor civil liberties. Together, these voters would have little in common otherwise.

Another complication is the potential of another terrorist attack. One spectacular act and public opinion could flip, much as it did after 9/11, back to favoring government surveillance. Politicians know this, with many of them opting to blast the Obama administration for not being more transparent but most opposing an end to broad surveillance powers.

“If in fact something happens, you’re basically putting yourself in a position to look like you didn’t do something when you should have. And that’s got to be in the back of their head,” said Ed Goeas, president of the Tarrance Group in Alexandria, Va., a Republican survey research and strategy company.

That leaves voter-activists like Scot with little to work with, even with midterm elections next year that expose one-third of the Senate and every member of the House.

“I don’t believe it’s going to be a driving issue” in the upcoming elections, Goeas added. “It’s got to be the total picture” on national security that appeals to voters.

At issue is whether the government overstepped its bounds when it began collecting and searching the phone and Internet records of Americans to gather information on suspected terrorists overseas. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released late last month found that Americans are divided over whether they support the surveillance programs revealed earlier this year, but most Americans — 57 percent — still say it’s more important for the government to investigate terrorism than to put privacy first.

Like their constituents, lawmakers too are divided. Last month, a House proposal that essentially would have made the NSA phone collection program illegal failed in a 217-205 vote that didn’t fall along party lines. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California were among the 217 who voted to spare the program.

In the Senate, a small group of lawmakers — namely Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. — is taking a stronger line in favor of civil liberties. But progress has been slow, with few co-sponsors joining their legislative proposals to limit NSA spying powers. Meanwhile, such influential senators as Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have defended the program and said Edward Snowden, who leaked details of the NSA programs, is guilty of treason.

Doug Hattaway, a Washington-based Democratic strategist, said the reluctance by most lawmakers to take sides isn’t surprising, considering that most Americans say they want both security and privacy.

“I don’t see Democrats benefiting from joining forces with libertarians,” he said. “If voters are looking for balance, I wouldn’t hop on the bandwagon with Rand Paul.”

Another challenge for surveillance foes is that industry isn’t exactly fighting back. Technology and phone companies often say they are prohibited from divulging details about government surveillance requests, but that’s only partially true. Federal law prohibits alerting customers when they are surveillance subjects as long as a court order remains in effect. But not all gag orders last forever.

So when AT&T wouldn’t tell Scot whether her information had ever been shared with the government, chances are that’s because it didn’t want to — not because it couldn’t.

AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris declined to comment on Scot’s case in particular or matters of national security. “We value our customers’ privacy and work hard to protect it by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects,” he said.

Meanwhile, Scot says she can’t understand why other customers are not just as angry. She’s now looking to switch providers, and has downloaded a mobile application called Seecyrpt that offers encrypted phone calls for $ 3 a month. But she knows it’s unlikely that a majority of Americans will follow her lead.

“I’m just one of these people who gets riled about things,” she said. “People are like sheep.”

___

Follow Anne Flaherty on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnneKFlaherty

Associated Press

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Voters mad about NSA spying face uphill battle