Joe Did What? Ideology Edition

Via Unwanted.

Let me try from a different direction:

There is something better happening at the moment than in the Clinton (certainly) or Obama (probably) presidencies. Though Biden is officially to the "right" of Obama (certainly) or Clinton (possibly—way to the right of Hillary Clinton, anyhow), he seems to find himself leaping into things that are "left". Why would that be?

One possibility is that there's some kind of disconnect between the "left"-ness of the president's personal identity and the "left"-ness of the things she or he does. Is that possible?

Yes. This is the kind of thing I've been trying to suggest for I don't know how many years, with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who ran his 1932 presidential campaign as the budget balancer, as my prime example. FDR, not an appreciably "left " person, signed on to an extraordinarily "left" bunch of ideas. But how did such a thing happen? 

One possibility is that FDR was a secret socialist, hidden from all the voters, who suddenly showed his true colors after the inauguration and rained down the socialist revolution on the unsuspecting voters, wno had no idea what was coming. Another is that the "brain trust" of his advisers. some of them out-and-out Communists, some of them banksters like Bernard Baruch, came up with ideas that looked good, and Roosevelt decided to try some of them out—not because he thought they were "left" enough or "right" enough, but because he thought they would do some good. (As it happened they were all pretty "left".)

I happen to think the latter is the more likely: FDR attacked the crisis of the Great Depression, and it took a pretty long time, seven or eight years, not through a "left" or "right" orientation where he was more one thing or the other thing than all his competitors, but let us say through being PRAGMATIC and smart and recognizing that the relatively "left" ideas he was hearing about were likely to be the most effective under the circumstances. Leftist thinkers came up with the ideas,  non-leftist Roosevelt looked at them and thought they looked good. And was right, in spite of not being a leftist, because he was smart, and optimistic. 

EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE LEFTIST IDEAS, A NON-LEFTIST WAS ABLE TO ADVOCATE THEM BECAUSE THEY MADE SENSE. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? I don't know how I can make it any clearer—it actually happened.

The same seems to apply to Biden:

• BIDEN IS NOT A LEFTIST
• BIDEN HAS A FRIENDLY ATTITUDE TOWARD SOME LEFTIST IDEAS
• BECAUSE THEY MAKE SENSE

What can I tell you?

I think the relevant variables are (1) not how "left" or "right" the president is, but how willing she or he is to listen to experts, and (2) not how "left" or "right" the president is, but how willing the left is to talk to him or her.

The self-denominated left was not willing to talk to Clinton, calling him (with some justice) a "triangulator".

The self-denominated left was not willing to talk to Obama, worrying that he was interested in collaborating with beastly Bowles and Simpson.

The self-denominated left was not willing to talk to Hillary Clinton, because WikiLeaks said she was mean.

The left, such as it is, is willing to talk to Joe Biden. I think that's a major difference.

I don't even know why, but I think it's a good thing, And I think the question of whether a presidential candidate is good  enough or not really could be boiled down to those two questions—

• does s/he have people worth listening to?
• will s/he listen to them?

without any reference to "left"-ness and "right"-ness at all.