US Election 2020: Biden’s family tragedies taught him courage and compassion
Americans voted for a president who has experienced life’s triumphs and sorrows.
Joe Biden’s path to the presidency has been defined by tragedy, resilience and compassion. It is an extraordinary story of soaring highs and crushing lows, good fortune and bad luck, but through all the grief and the pain, Biden has said, he always finds purpose.
As a young boy, he overcame a debilitating stutter and endured bullying. As a newly elected senator, he lost his wife and daughter in a car accident. He lost his son, Beau, to brain cancer. He lost two campaigns for president. But he persisted, learned from setbacks and heartbreaks, and they shaped his character.
During his time as a city councilman in Delaware (1970-72), senator (1973-2009) and vice president (2009-17), Biden has been moderate, centrist and pragmatic. He has worked co-operatively with Democrats and Republicans. He is recognised as a man of decency and integrity. It enabled him to secure more Republican endorsements than any previous Democratic candidate for president.
It was his authenticity, working-class roots and his ability to empathise with voters that, above all, won him the presidency. Biden built a broad coalition of support from mainstream voters across vast stretches of America, east and west, north and south, in the rust belt and the sun belt, coast to coast.
Biden made inroads into Donald Trump’s support base. While there was no Democratic “blue wave”, Republicans in many counties voted to keep their House and Senate members but opted for Biden over Trump. Biden recognised that, like in the 2018 mid-term elections, Democrats had to appeal to moderate voters rather than energise radical liberals with promises of “socialism”. That was never going to deliver the White House.
During the Democratic Party’s primaries and caucuses, Biden initially looked outflanked by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the left, Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bloomberg in the centre, and without the energy or enthusiasm that Kamala Harris or Pete Buttigieg generated. But Biden matched the moment. Democrats recognised he could beat Trump. But it came late. Biden won his first primary delegate, ever, in South Carolina after losing badly in Iowa and New Hampshire. African Americans were essential in delivering the presidential nomination to Biden.
In a new biography of the president-elect, Joe Biden: The Life, the Run and What Matters Now, journalist Evan Osnos writes that Biden stuck to his belief that judgment, character and temperament was on the ballot in 2020. He advocated mostly moderate policy positions — although some were often not that well explained, such as on fracking — in a belief that it would pay an electoral dividend.
“Biden’s candidacy rested on a bet that, when the pendulum of history swung away from Trump, it might swing towards incrementalism and experience, rather than toward youth and progressive zeal,” Osnos writes in the just-published book.
It was a judgment that ultimately proved correct. But it required keeping the Democratic Party united and working with Sanders and Warren, in particular, on policy. Bloomberg contributed to the campaign. Buttigieg and Klobuchar became important media surrogates. Harris was picked as vice president.
Politics is a learning profession: those who fail to grow and adapt, to learn, always fail. Biden in 2020 was not the often arrogant, scrappy hothead who had to drop out of the presidential race in 1987 — before the primaries and caucuses — because he had plagiarised a speech from British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. He was also caught exaggerating his law school results.
As a senator, Biden’s positions on issues evolved over time. He regrets supporting aspects of the 1994 Crime Bill. He said he could have handled Judiciary Committee hearings into Clarence Thomas’s nomination for the Supreme Court, and the allegations of sexual harassment, better. And he said it was a mistake to support the invasion of Iraq in 2002.
During his 2008 run for president, Biden was often verbose and gaffe-prone. He referred to Barack Obama as “clean”, which was interpreted by some as a racial gaffe. Biden struggled in the Democratic primaries and caucuses. He was seen as past his prime. He dropped out. But Obama chose Biden to be on his ticket as vice president. Biden was given another chance. He forged a close relationship with Obama.
As vice president, Biden was critical in getting votes for Obama’s signature stimulus package during the global financial crisis and passing landmark healthcare reform. This experience, and decades as a senator, could serve Biden well as president. He knows how to negotiate, compromise and forge consensus. He knows the Republican leadership.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, the late presidential scholar and adviser to John F. Kennedy, argued that “the president is the central player in the American political order” and shapes America’s destiny.
“(Presidents) express the ideals and the values, the frailties and the flaws, of the voters who send them there.”
Biden is known to Americans, having been in the public spotlight for a half-century. He is the oldest president elected. He turns 78 next week. He is the first Catholic president since Kennedy. He joins a long line of vice presidents who have become president, including George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman.
For many Americans it is the tragedies Biden has endured which resonate the most. He has become consoler-in-chief, able to connect with those who have experienced loss because he has experienced it too. This empathy took on critical importance during the pandemic as almost 250,000 Americans have died from the virus.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr was born during World War II, on November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is the eldest of four children born to Joseph Biden Sr and Jean Finnegan. He was educated at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University and worked as a lawyer before going into politics in his late 20s. He married schoolteacher Neilia Hunter in 1966 and they had three children: Beau, Hunter and Amy.
In 1972, Biden ran for the Senate from Delaware hoping to unseat political veteran Caleb Boggs. He had served as representative and governor, and was expected to easily win a third term in the Senate. But Biden beat Boggs in an upset result by a margin of fewer than 4000 votes.
The following month, while in Washington, Biden received a call with the news that Neilia and the kids had been out buying a Christmas tree when a truck slammed into their car. Neilia and Amy were killed while the boys were badly injured. Biden did not want to be sworn-in as a senator, feeling he had to focus on his sons. But he was persuaded by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield to take up the seat and reassess the situation in six months. He was sworn-in at the hospital where his boys were recovering.
During his 36 years in the Senate, Biden took the 90-minute Amtrak train between Wilmington and Washington DC so he could see Beau and Hunter every morning and evening. His sister Valerie helped to raise the boys while working closely on his political campaigns. In 1977, after meeting two years earlier, Biden married teacher Jill Jacobs. They have a daughter, Ashley.
Beau, a war veteran and state politician with a promising future in national politics, died of brain cancer at age 46 in 2015. Biden was distraught. “It happened,” Biden wrote in his diary. “My God, my boy. My beautiful boy.” It is gut-wrenching to read. Biden poured out his emotions and shared his anguish with Americans.
Any thought he had of running again for president in 2016 was extinguished. He did not plan to run in 2020. But Trump was too much for Biden to ignore. He put on the political gloves again and entered the ring.
Biden is unlikely to be a transformative president. He is almost certain to serve just one term and not run for re-election in 2024. He would be the first president since Johnson in 1968 not to seek another term in the White House. But having defeated Trump, he has already written himself into the annals of US political history.
Still, there are ambitious policies on his agenda. Collectively, they place him to the left of Obama and Bill Clinton, the two most recent Democratic presidents. But these policies are likely to be checked by a Republican-controlled Senate — although that is unclear at this stage — which places a premium on compromise. This suits Biden and may be a blessing in disguise.
The central purpose of Biden’s campaign was to defeat Trump, return the presidency to normality and heal divisions across America. He can tick off the first and will achieve the second. The third will be exceedingly difficult given the partisan divide following an acrimonious campaign and with an outgoing president unwilling to accept defeat let alone assist with the healing process.
But the lesson of Biden’s life is that he has always confounded expectations. Through tragedy has come renewed purpose and resilience time and again. He always works hard, is eager to prove himself and never gives in. He is only the fourth candidate to defeat an incumbent president in a century. It would be a mistake to underestimate the 46th president.
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Timeline
1942
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, November 20.
1966
Marries Neilia Hunter. They have three children, Joseph (“Beau”), Hunter and Amy.
1968
Begins his legal career in the firm of a prominent Republican; thinks of himself “as a Republican for six or seven months, no longer”.
1970
Elected a councillor of the New Castle County Council.
1972
Elected junior senator for Delaware, defeating Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs. Six weeks after the election, on December 18, his wife Neilia and daughter Amy are killed in a car accident. Sons Beau and Hunter are injured and hospitalised. At the hospital, Biden is sworn in as senator.
1975
Supports Republican senator Jesse Helms to oppose “bussing” measures intended to integrate black and white school students. In the 2019 Democratic presidential debates, candidate Kamala Harris criticises Biden’s “hurtful” position on bussing.
1977
Marries Jill Jacobs, an English teacher. They later have a daughter, Ashley.
1986
Speaks out against apartheid and clashes with the Reagan administration over its continued support for South Africa.
1987
Runs for president for the first time, seeking endorsement as Democratic nominee. In a campaign speech, he is accused of plagiarising a speech by British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. He later withdraws from the race.
1993
Travels to the Balkans and tells Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, “I think you’re a damn war criminal”. Backs intervention in the Balkans to support Bosnian Muslims.
1994
Supports the Violence Against Women Act to end violence against women.
2007
Announces candidacy for 2008 presidential election, but withdraws after poor poll results.
2008
In August, Barack Obama names Biden as his running mate. Biden runs simultaneously for Vice President and for re-election as senator for Delaware.
2009
Sworn in as Vice President, after resigning from the Senate. Heads Obama’s transition team. Given responsibility for Iraq, he travels to Baghdad every few months.
2011
Killing of Osama bin Laden by US Navy SEALs in Pakistan. Biden reportedly raised concerns about the raid proceeding; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recalled him as being “sceptical”.
2012
Declares support for same-sex marriage, pre-empting Obama’s endorsement of the issue.
2015
Son Beau dies from brain cancer, age 46.
2017
In one of the final acts of his presidency, Obama presents Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
2020
Accepts nomination as Democratic candidate for president, with Kamala Harris as running mate. Defeats Donald Trump in the presidential election.
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