Voters lean towards average Joe Biden — but may get a radical

The Democrat’s common touch is attracting voters who may be unaware of his left-wing policies

While Joe Biden’s campaign may be moderate, the agenda he has laid out is arguably to the left of Barack Obama’s in 2008. Picture: AFP

After Joe Biden’s 51 years in politics, by now America has a pretty good sense of who he is. People remember Barack Obama’s vice-president and buddy. They know him as “lunch bucket” Joe, middle-class Joe and “Amtrak” Joe. A guy who has an Interstate 95 service station bearing his name. A father who has endured unimaginable personal loss. A Washington Beltway veteran. A decent man.

President Biden — bearing in mind Thomas Jefferson’s observation that “No man will ever bring out of that office (the presidency) the reputation which carries him into it” — may be another matter entirely, however.

With President Donald Trump sliding in the polls and an election just over three months away, the country is starting to contemplate that very real possibility.

Would a feeble President Biden be a puppet for the rising tide of Jacobinism in the Democratic Party, a moderate shield behind which the left can remake America? That is what conservatives fear.

Or would he be a bold reformer, shepherding through the transformational agenda that a divided, pandemic-stricken nation so desperately needs? That is what liberals hope.

The core of Biden’s message to America is respite. He is promising to let the country take a much-needed breather after four years of Trump. And to “restore the soul” of a rancorous nation.

However, while Biden’s image and campaign may be moderate, the agenda he has laid out is arguably to the left of Barack Obama’s in 2008. It is bold, even radical. “We won’t just rebuild this nation — we’ll transform it,” he has promised.

To bring the leftist wing of the party on board, Biden has joined forces with Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist he pipped to the party’s — still presumptive — nomination, to appoint a “unity” taskforce.

Its recommendations, released this month, included a $US2 trillion ($2.8 trillion) climate-change plan that bears a striking resemblance to the Green New deal proposed by the radical leftist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This promises to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and create an “environmental and climate justice division” that could punish corporate officials whose businesses cause pollution.

US President Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

Biden has shown an openness to killing off the legislative filibuster in the Senate, which currently allows a minority party with at least 40 seats to block ambitious legislation from the majority. He has also proposed lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare and forgiving some student loan debt.

Not all these policies will be popular, nor even remotely feasible unless Democrats also win back the Senate in November, an outcome that is far from certain. But what is undoubtedly true is that Americans find Biden difficult to hate.

About 60 per cent view him as “even- tempered”, while 54 per cent believe he “cares about the needs of ordinary people”. In a divided country, those are compelling figures.

Amid racial justice protests, Biden has demonstrated moderation, offering support for Black Lives Matter but pushing back on demands to defund police or remove monuments to the American founders — and slave-owners — George Washington and Jefferson.

“I think he really does represent the moderate middle, the sane centre,” said Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, a former Democratic congresswoman. “Because there’s just such meanness coming out of the White House.”

The tight group of advisers around Biden has been with him for decades. It includes his sister, Valerie, and officials who served with him in the Obama administration, such as former deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken and his former counsellor Mike Donilon.

From the early days of the primary campaign, this group has sought to steer Biden away from the more radical wing of the party, believing many Democrats want restoration, not revolution,

“He is not a polarising figure,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic political consultant who has worked with Biden. “He would try to see if he could get some work done with some Republicans. But it’s an ambitious agenda, a centre-left message.”

What many Americans connect to is Biden’s personal story. The 30-year-old senator-elect who in 1972 lost his wife Neilia and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, in a car crash. The veteran vice-president who bade farewell to his beloved son Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015. The lower-middle-class boy from Scranton, Pennsylvania, a poster city for ordinary America. The man who moved to Wilmington, Delaware, and never left, commuting back to see his bereaved family from his job in Washington.

“What’s emerged fairly dramatically is that Joe Biden is a decent guy,” said Margolies-Mezvinsky. “When one of my children died, he called me. I could hear in his voice his empathy, his knowledge about loss.”

Biden has trumpeted his desire to restore empathy to foreign policy, too. He hopes to re-establish America’s place at the head of the “adults’ table” and has mooted a “summit for democracy” to emphasise he is seeking to co-operate with its traditional allies once more.

The Sunday Times