Joseph Biden Primary Talk and Rotten Boroughs

This weekend the major media revived the idea that Vice President Joseph (Joe) Biden could enter the Democratic Presidential primaries. That isn't as exciting as watching Donald Trump beating up on his Republican rivals, but it reveals much about Democratic Party and American politics.

The basic idea is that while the nation might be ready for a female President, that female might not be Hillary Clinton. She is taking a bit of a bruising from the "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party, now led by Bernie Sanders, who until recently was an independent socialist, not a Democrat at all. And of course the the conservative media, which is most of the media, treat Hillary like she is some combination of Bloody Mary and Joe Stalin's wife.

Joe Biden would be promoted as a fresh face that can unite the Party. Once its bureaucracy, donors, and likely even voters, reject the Bernie Sanders bid.

People forget what Joe Biden stands for and where he comes from. A narrative a personal grief and service as Vice President under Barack Obama is supposed to make us forget his deeper, darker, shadier past.

Joe Biden come from a pocket borough, and not just any pocket borough.

The term pocket borough came from Britain to indicate an election district where a very few people chose someone for Parliament. It did not so much result from corruption as from the migration from rural areas to cities, combined by leaving the districts drawn in ancient past in place. But once the pocket burroughs existed, it was easy for rich people to control them, and thus control Parliament.

A similar, if not quite as dramatic, situation exists in the United States, set in cement when the Constitution was drawn up. Each state gets two Senators, no matter how small its population.

Bernie Sanders is from the state of Vermont. It has a population of about 627,000. In other words, its entire population is equivalent to a mid-size city in one of the more populous states. Yet it gets two U.S. Senators. In this state we had liberal capture, or socialist capture if you will, or at least capture by Bernie Sanders. He has never accomplished much in the U.S. Congress, but he has somehow kept the voters in Vermont happy.

Before the Vice Presidency Joe Biden was Senator from Delaware. That state has a population of about 936,000, but is much more urban/suburban than Vermont. Most importantly Delaware is the most corrupt state in the nation, if by corrupt you mean rich people and their banks and corporations getting their way. Delaware is so corrupt that corruption (of the corporate type) is legal.

Most notably, Delaware has the loosest laws to control corporations in the nation. It is so lawless that most corporations of any size in the U.S. incorporate themselves in Delaware, even though their corporate headquarters are in other states.

So as Senator, Joe Biden was essential representing corporate America. The last time he tried to run for President I called him the Senator from Visa Card.

On the plus side Biden seems to have been less interested in pushing foreign wars than Hillary Clinton. When it comes to the Presidency, you have to pick your poison, if you want to have some chance of backing a winning candidate. If you want to vote your progressive conscience there is always the Green Party candidate. Though I think Hillary is actually reasonably environmentally friendly and progressive, when compared to the other choices.

Perhaps the bigger question is not who should be President, but why the Senate should be institutionally riddled with corruption. The Constitution should be amended to apportion the Senate to make each Senator represent roughly the same number of people, like other offices in the U.S.