the rix mix

I noticed the high regard shown to Jill Biden by the Democratic elite, although we don't know much about her. But she's been married to Joe for 30 years, so everyone in Washington politics knows something of her & no one feels any need to "gild the lily." In politics, women are depicted as too ambitious & educated & therefore insufficiently maternal if they're unable or unwilling to bake cookies, or they're criticised for being too much in the background, too compromised in their marriages to powerful men. Jill Jacobs-Biden was born in Hammonton NJ, raised in Pennsy, had a brief first marriage before Joe; solid rather than prestige education 3 of her 4 degrees are from public schools, finished her doctorate two years ago; taught high school & special ed; spent some years as a homemaker after the birth of her daughter; & for past decade has taught at a community college. As an educator, she's in the trenches not up in an ivory tower. She is an expert on education by training & experience. The Bidens aren't a "power couple" in the sense of the Clintons or Obamas, & she's definitely not a beer heiress bankrolling her husband's lifestyle. But after three decades of marriage, & given what she married into, the politics & the tragedy, the reason the Bidens are one of the "poorest" senate families is because becoming a wealthy family wasn't on their agenda. Jill Biden will be very good for this campaign.

I was unimpressed, though, with Joe's praise of his mom for having ordered him to give a bully a bloody nose. That response is not an all-purpose solution to bullying, it's an act of desperation. It may deflect a bully's attention on to someone even weaker, but it won't change the bully. But as a political lesson, it's probably a good one right now.

Labels: THE election