Lauren Mayer: Remember Joe Biden?

All the election news lately has been about arguments traded back & forth between Obama & Romney, or Romney’s campaign woes, or Paul Ryan’s getting booed at an AARP convention. Sort of makes me feel sorry for Joe Biden.  First of all, he’s running for an office once famously equated with “a warm bucket of spit”. And he can’t even stand out in those races – four years ago he was totally overshadowed by Tina Fey’s look-alike, and now he’s running against someone who makes a whole different set of headlines. (Apparently, the week Ryan was announced, that week’s most frequent google search was “Paul Ryan Shirtless”, and more than one comic hypothesized that the week’s least frequent google search was “Joe Biden Shirtless”.)

But do a little research about Biden, and you’ll find that his ‘everyman’ cred is genuine.  He graduated near the bottom of his class in both college & law school, he is one of the least wealthy members of Congress, and he’s well-known for making verbal slips (or at least prematurely ‘outing’ Obama’s support for gay marriage). (He’s had quite a distinguished career, including being one of the longest serving senators in history.)  So I decided poor Joe deserved a little musical love . . .