With a single-word response, Sen. Joe Biden surprised and amused his listeners in the first Democratic primary debate, in April 2007. He was asked if he could be disciplined on the world stage and restrain his legendary loquaciousness.
“Yes,” he said.
No one expected Biden to stop there, but he did, leaving an expectant silence, until the audience caught the joke and burst into laughter.
He showed less restraint in a CNN/YouTube debate a few months later, when a gun owner asked the candidates about gun control, saying he wanted to know if his “babies” would be safe. “This is my baby,” the man said on the video, showing off his Bushmaster AR-15.
“I'll tell you what,” Biden replied. “If that is his baby, he needs help.”
The audience applauded enthusiastically, but Biden did not stop there.
He went on to deride the questioner, saying he incriminated himself because the man said he bought the gun while it was banned, then he questioned the man's stability. “I don't know that he is mentally qualified to own that gun,” he said in a gratuitous aside.
The Democrats held 26 debates during the primary season. Biden, of Delaware, participated in 14 of them before he dropped out of the race Jan. 3, after he came in fifth in the Iowa caucuses. That would seem to give him a huge advantage going into tomorrow's vice-presidential debate with Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, who has never debated on the national stage.
But his off-putting remark to the gun owner suggests that perhaps his “yes” answer to the question about self-discipline had been premature and that there are perils for Biden tomorrow – both because of his tendency to go too far and the hazards of debating a woman.
Biden's debate performances show him to be deeply knowledgeable on many topics, reflecting his nearly four decades in Washington, where he is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Biden's answers tend to gush forth and his voice is raspy, which lends his arguments an air of urgency. He also uses assertive phrases like, “the truth is,” or “folks, let me tell you,” which grab listeners by the lapel.
At the June 3 debate in New Hampshire, for example, he was asked to defend his vote to continue financing the war in Iraq, a vote sought by the White House and criticized by fellow Democrats. All the other Democrats on stage voted against it, including Sen. Barack Obama, the presidential nominee who has picked Biden as his running mate.
“I love these guys who tell you they're going to stop the war,” Biden said. “Let me tell you straight up the truth. The truth of the matter is, the only one that's emboldened the enemy has been George Bush by his policies, not us funding the war.”
One danger for Biden tomorrow is that his habit of speaking authoritatively, of saying he possesses the truth, will come across as overbearing or condescending, particularly toward someone like Palin, who lacks his credentials.
The only other time a woman has appeared on the debate stage as part of a major-party ticket was in 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, faced Vice President George H.W. Bush. One exchange might offer Biden a good lesson.
Bush had said, “Let me help you with the difference, Mrs. Ferraro, between Iran and the embassy in Lebanon.” Ferraro instantly highlighted what she perceived as condescension: “I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy.”
2008 VOTE: VICE PRESIDENT