What Uncle Joe really does for Democrats.
The day that made Joe Biden vice president was the worst day of his public career: the brisk afternoon of January 22, 2007.
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Biden said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” Obama said nothing about Biden’s gaffe, or about race. That wasn’t unusual. The man who would become the first black president was navigating the politics of race in America with unprecedented dexterity, and mostly by avoiding talking about race at all. Republicans sure didn’t want to talk about race. Nobody really wanted to pull a Biden.
Obama didn’t have to explain the gesture; he’d found that talking about race at all undermined your messaging about race. But by choosing Biden he telegraphed to white voters what kind of first black president he would be: He would be the kind who didn’t mind the occasional screw-up, who knew you meant well. When Obama won, he carried a higher share of white voters than Al Gore or John Kerry had, and more than Hillary Clinton would.
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