WurfWhile

Joe Biden (when it works) recently declared his intent to consider the presidency in two years according to USA Today (via Political Wire).

Biden has been vocal about foreign affairs for a little while now, he may think that foreign affairs (e.g. Iraq) will still be the focus of the nation in 2008, and give him a platform to run on and distinguish himself from the crowd. I’m not convinced that the senator from Delaware will have what it takes to draw the voters - even in foreign affairs - but I’m listening.

One thing that isn’t likely to help Biden in the primary, but may in a general election, is former Judiciary Committee Chairman Biden’s record of supporting the vast majority of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees early in Bush’s first term. Later he tended to join his party more in preventing extreme judges from getting to the bench - but this may not save him in the Democratic primaries.

The knock against Joe Biden in the past has been, paradoxically, that Biden knows a good speech when he sees one. Whether enough time has passed or the sins of the current administration are so great as to make Biden’s past plagiarism incidents irrelevant, only a primary (and maybe general) election will tell. Additionally, Biden is older now, but I’m not sure that his reputation is all that much greater in the public than in his prior losing run. Carrying Delaware will only get you so far in a primary.

In the spirit of improving the Democratic field, here is a quick piece of advice to Biden (and to all candidates). If you’re going to make a political announcement (or even if you aren’t - but you want to look good) really try to make sure your website is in working order and updated. For national politicians the cost is pretty minimal in the scope of things - and yet when I went to Biden’s site right now I got the following errors:

All News linked to Error loading news:Table ‘joebi1.xgate_news’ doesn’t exist

Connect Me… … send campaign news via email to me. yielded Cannot query database. Table ‘joebi1.lists’ doesn’t exist - so much for connecting me and keeping me informed about what Joe is doing.

While Biden has “Issues” - he doesn’t seem to have had any since August 2002 - Joe does slightly better in the picture department, going up to October 2002 in his dated Photo section.

A quick look at other sections showed that they seem to work OK (I didn’t sign up to volunteer - and I’m not donating right now - so I didn’t go beyond those initial pages - but I hope for Joe’s sake they work).

When you’re in Congress you can get an intern or staffer to do updates, and the appearance of being on the ball can only help. It’s time for candidates to get with it - spend the effort necessary to get it right online. Done right, it more than pays for itself in donations, gives you additional exposure and makes it look to the public like you can at least run your own office right. Having your website in working order and up-to-date is just blocking and tackling - it’s going to become almost impossible to win the presidency without those basics.