Joe Biden has certainly made a number of gaffes lately, and of course these are far more likely to make the headlines than more important stories about Biden, such as the many times he countered Hillary Clinton’s hawkish views in the Obama administration. I have also become more tolerant of Biden’s verbal gaffes since he did such an excellent job when really needed, the Vice Presidential debate in 2012 after Obama did a poor job in the first debate.
The headline on Biden’s gaffes which is most worth reading is at The National Journal: Why Joe Biden’s Gaffes Don’t Matter. Rebecca Nelson summarized some of Biden’s recent gaffes, such as the use of Shylocks and calling Asia the Orient.
But does any of it really matter? Sure, the Anti-Defamation League called the Shylock misstep “offensive” and said Biden “should have been more careful.” And the White House will certainly walk back on Biden’s off-message troops remark. But Biden has a long history of saying the wrong thing, and hasn’t suffered serious, career-killing backlash for any of it.
Research shows that news media tends to overhype gaffes. Despite saturated coverage of politicians’ misspeaks, according to the United States Project, they ultimately don’t make much of a difference in elections. After President Obama said the private sector was “doing fine” in the thick of the 2012 election, Gallup showed an increase in the president’s numbers, from 46 percent three days before the so-called gaffe to 49 percent three days post.
When a gaffe does matter, FiveThirtyEight noted earlier this year, is when it motivates the base. In the 2006 Virginia Senate race, all signs pointed to Sen. George Allen winning an easy reelection against Democratic challenger Jim Webb. That is, until he called a campaign tracker—a man of Indian descent—a “macaca,” a racial slur. That fired up Webb’s supporters, whose contributions to the campaign spiked, and added to Allen’s already-established reputation of racial intolerance.
Biden doesn’t have a history of antisemitism or racism toward Asian people. “Clearly, there was no ill intent here,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, of Biden’s Shylock comment. “There is no truer friend of the Jewish people than Joe Biden.”
Normally I would have more comment surrounding a quote from another article, but this is really says it all quite well. It was refreshing to see someone in the media recognize that what the media concentrates on is not necessarily what is important.
