Their True Agenda

By Ed Hoffman

There’s plenty of time to talk about whether Vice President Joe Biden would make a good presidential candidate – after he officially announces, for example. While talking heads chatter about whether Biden stands a chance this time around, he has stayed relatively quiet on the subject. And yet, everyone on the Sunday morning talk shows was chiming in on how the Vice President could potentially capture votes away from Hillary Clinton. On NBC’s Meet the Press, the network’s angry professor Melissa Harris-Perry had a suggestion – and it speaks volumes about who Democrats really believe their base is.

“Biden is great for the Democrat party if he runs, even if he has no shot of winning,” Harris-Perry said. “What Democrats need to win in the general election is a broad group of Democrats across the country who have become not only excited, but also registered.”

Wait a minute: Democrats who have become registered? So they were Democrats before they were registered? Does that mean they were Democrats without their own knowledge? That’s what Harris-Perry seemed to be saying. “That’s what we saw in 2008,” she continued. “You need a long and hard fought campaign to get Democrats registered so they show up to vote.”

So, who are these mysterious Democrats who are well into adulthood before they even register to vote? We can only conclude that Harris-Perry is speaking about uninformed citizens who aren’t motivated to register until someone who gets them excited comes along; this is a demographic known as “low information voters.” These are people who only register to vote if someone makes it virtually effortless for them; then, they vote on the basis of emotion, race, gender, first impressions or even physical appearance. In other words, their votes are shallow at best – but according to Harris-Perry, Joe Biden must go after them. This is nothing new, of course; it’s exactly how Barack Obama got elected.

It’s amazing when Democrats let their true agenda slip, and it’s especially fascinating when they don’t bat an eye while doing it. Harris-Perry made these remarks as if she was not saying anything particularly controversial; to her, this is just straightforward political analysis. And yet, it reveals so much about the way the Democrat party operates.

She wasn’t done, though; Harris-Perry continued by emphasizing how Joe Biden can seize the black vote away from Ms. Clinton. “The important thing to know about African-American voters is they were in Hillary Clinton’s camp prior to the Iowa caucuses in 2008,” she said. “If Joe Biden can present in a way that is more clearly responsive to Black Lives Matter, and if he can present in a way that he is truly the White House’s guy…that he is the third Obama term…he is almost as good in terms of his capacity for fluidity in terms of cultural discourse with black communities.”

So there you have it: Melissa Harris-Perry thinks that the sitting Vice President should show solidarity with the same people who inspired someone to shoot a Houston sheriff’s deputy in the head as he pumped gas on Saturday. The same people that Ferguson resident Peggy Hubbard scolded in her flawless YouTube video, in response to them ignoring the killing of a nine-year-old girl while protesting the police takedown of a thug. The same people chanting “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon” in Minnesota over the weekend. Joe Biden should show these people support in order to win the black vote? Shame on any candidate who does that.

Ed Hoffman is host of The Main Event on AM590, which airs Saturday 9:30 AM- 10:30 AM and Sunday 4:00 PM- 5:00 PM. Follow him on Twitter @EdHoffman, and like him on Facebook by searching The Main Event 590.