Finally, after several heartbreaking attempts, Joe Biden got the long-sought prize in his life-long political odyssey. His previous presidential runs in 1987 and 2007 dismally ended without even winning a single primary contest. On his first attempt, he was accused of plagiarizing a part of his campaign speech, inflating his academic performance and exaggerating youth activism. On his second attempt, Obama and Clinton largely dominated the field and he withdrew from the race after getting less than 1 percent of the votes in the Iowa caucuses. He admitted doing some dumb things in his unsuccessful presidential bids and obviously he learned his lessons well. This year, as a frontrunner, he was more disciplined—no longer the gut politician who is partial to ad-libbing and swaggering just to entertain the crowd. After initial setbacks this year, his political fortune turned around in North Carolina when he won his first primary election largely with the support of the black majority voters. And there was no turning back. He won a string of decisive primary contests leaving no chance for his closest opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, to catch up and he clinched his party’s nomination as its official standard bearer for the 2020 presidential election.
Biden is an experienced politician with a remarkable success as a member of the US Senate. He served as the US Senator representing Delaware for 36 unbroken years, one of the longest terms in that august assembly. He served as chairman of the two most powerful committees in the Senate—the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is an expert in foreign relations and a respected law-and-order public servant, two critical issues that hounded President Donald J. Trump. Biden was the 47th Vice President of his country. If elected President, he would be the oldest American first termer to occupy the White House. He would be 78 years old on November 20, 2020, and three years older than Trump.
Biden is no stranger to personal tragedy. Grief and filial loss have impelled his resolve to excel and succeed. His elder son, Beau, a former Attorney General of Delaware, died of brain cancer at 46. He was a promising public servant and a decorated military man. It was another tragic loss for Biden. His first wife, Neilia Hunter and his 13-month old daughter, Naomi, perished in a car accident in 1972, just six weeks after Biden was first elected Senator. Beau and his brother were also in the car and seriously injured but they both survived after spending months in the hospital. If not for encouragement of the elders of the Democratic Party, Senators Ted Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Mike Mansfield, Biden would not have taken his oath of office and assumed his Senate seat. Biden then said: “Delaware can get another senator, but my boys cannot get another father.” Biden took his oath next to the hospital beds of his sons. As narrated by former presidential candidate and Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, Biden once told him that tragedy involving the loss of your wife or son, creates “a black hole… in your chest, like you’re being sucked back into it…. But there comes a day when the thought of your son, daughter or wife, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear in your eyes.” Former President Barack Obama, endearingly said that what he admired most about Biden “is resilience, born of too much struggle, his empathy, born of too much grief.” Obama deeply acknowledged his contribution to his administration when he said: “For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision. He made me a better president…and he’s got the character and the experience to make us a better country.” Before he left office as Vice President, Obama conferred him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian decoration the US government can confer to anyone.
Biden’s coronation as his party’s standard-bearer culminated last Thursday. But that is not the ultimate goal. Getting elected as his country’s 49th President will be the pinnacle of that dream. Biden is now on the cusp of achieving that political glory. A remarkable journey that took him on a daily train ride to Washington and back to his home in Wilmington just to be with his children everyday in all the 36 long years that he had served the Senate. Biden would travel four long hours each day in an Amtrak train to read his children bedtime stories each night and shared breakfast with them each morning. And yet he had done so much as one of the foremost legislators of his country, sponsoring legislative measures that had improved the lives of every American.
In his own words, Biden cannot be more emphatic in describing the great significance of this forthcoming general election when he said: “This is a life-changing election that will determine America’s future for a very long time. Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And, most importantly, who we want to be. That’s all on the ballot.”
It’s up to every American, as aptly put by Biden, to choose between light and darkness; fact from fiction and hope over fear. November 3 is not just “a partisan moment” but also “an American moment.” No choice is clearer and more decisive to any voter who loves his country and cares for its people.
It appears that Biden is the vaccine that America needs to overcome the pandemic of hate, injustice, distrust and despair currently reigning across America.