The Same Old Tune

"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose."
-Jean-Baptist Alphonse Karr, Les Guepes, 1849

And so it goes with Democratic vice-presidential nominees.

As to 1988: In an article otherwise chock full of speculation and distortion, Karl Rove in today's Wall Street Journal points out:

Michael Dukakis spent the last months of the 1988 campaign calling his opponent's running mate, Dan Quayle, a risky choice and even ran a TV ad blasting Mr. Quayle. The Bush/Quayle ticket carried 40 states.

Aside from his memorable and biting comment about Quayle in the debate, where was Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen? Running a positive campaign, enhancing his own reputation, and doing nothing to undermine the GOP presidential nominee.

And 2000:

A little friendly banter between Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Joe Lieberman and Halliburton's Dick Cheney, in which the Connecticut senator during debate declines to call Cheney on his self-serving modus operandi:

....I'm pleased to see, Dick, from the newspapers that you're better off than you were eight years ago, too.
CHENEY: I can tell you, Joe, the government had absolutely nothing to do with it. (LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: This question is to you.
LIEBERMAN: I can see my wife and I think she's saying, "I think he should go out into the private sector."
CHENEY: I'll help you do that, Joe.
LIEBERMAN: I think you've done so well there, I want to keep you there. (LAUGHTER)

The V.P. nominee did what he could to undermine the ticket's chances during the recount controversy. In a July, 2001 article in The New York Times about the Florida vote debacle and the issue of Americans living abroad, David Barstow and Don Van Natta Jr. explained:

The flawed votes included ballots without postmarks, ballots postmarked after the election, ballots without witness signatures, ballots mailed from towns and cities within the United States and even ballots from voters who voted twice. All would have been disqualified had the state's election laws been strictly enforced.

Joe Lieberman's response on November 19, 2000 on Fox News Sunday to Repub efforts to have unlawful ballots from military personnel, contrary to law, counted? "In fact, we think that the ballots -- both the absentee ballots and the ones that are being hand counted in the three counties in South Florida now -- deserve the benefit of the doubt."

Then in 2004: Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards runs a listless campaign with little criticism of the Repub ticket, arguably an effort to maintain his reputation as a positive campaigner so as to enhance his bid for the 2008 presidential nomination, if Kerry were to lose.

And now in 2008: Joe Biden, appearing yesterday at a town hall meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire, gushing

Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend; she is qualified to be president of the United States of America. She’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States.

Predictably, the McCain camp promptly jumped on the statement, contending

It's very interesting that when it comes down to Barack Obama's biggest decision of the presidential election in choosing a vice president, the man that he selects says that he himself was the wrong choice, and that Hillary Clinton would have been a better fit.

Joe Biden is on the ballot this November for re-election to his Senate seat in Delaware, as Joe Lieberman was on the ballot (successfully) for re-election to the U.S. Senate as he was allegedly working to be elected Vice-President. Biden thus far has been reluctant to criticize the other V.P. nominee, Sarah Palin (who is constantly attacking Obama), though I am unaware whether this has been his choice or instead that of the campaign. Still, as Rove notes in his piece today, "the asssaults (or what the Republican operative implies are "assaults") diminish him- not her."

I admit that I thought the selection of Biden was wise- in part because he would not be reticent in going after whomever John McCain would select as his running-mate. Instead, or so it appears, "the more it changes, the more it's the same thing."