Joe Biden Could Be President— No, Seriously!

Ezra Klein thinks Biden has skills and gravitas under that silly exterior
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 10, 2013 11:42 AM CST
Joe Biden Could Be President— No, Seriously!
Seriously, this guy could be president.   (AP Photo/The Quad City Times, Kevin E. Schmidt)

Joe Biden is kind of the "zany neighbor" of the Obama administration, a veritable font of weird one-liners ("Spread your legs!" he told Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's husband this week. "You're gonna be frisked!") and Internet jokes (like this one). Really, he should be starring in his own reality show, as this White House petition suggests. "It's a good idea," writes Ezra Klein for Bloomberg. "Why don't we call it the 2016 presidential campaign?"

Stop laughing, Klein is serious. "Biden is one of the most successful vice presidents in history," he argues. He's the guy the White House calls in to negotiate with Republicans when all else has failed, and thanks to his "backslapping bonhomie," it usually works. He's "on a nickname basis with many of the world's most powerful leaders." And he's been effective both on the campaign trail and managing projects within the White House. "He may sometimes make himself a punch line, but he has the record of a heavyweight." Click for Klein's full column. (More Joe Biden stories.)

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