Joe Biden is the Democratic bet to bring the image of ordinary citizen closer to voters | National newspaper

It was at his son’s bedside in the hospital that he assumed the position of senator. The first great achievement and the first great tragedy in Joe Biden’s life.

“This is the childhood home of the next President Joe Biden.” So says the sign in front of the house in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Biden lived until he was ten. After that, his father lost his job and they moved to neighboring Delaware.

Journalist Evan Osnos wrote a book about the Democratic candidate: “The fact that he was a stutterer shaped Biden’s personality because, from a young age, he knew what it is to be vulnerable and have to work hard to overcome obstacles.”

As a teenager he got a job as a lifeguard in a swimming pool, which today bears his name. And the fact that this experience was in the neighborhood would shape Joe Biden’s political trajectory from his first position. As a councilman, he fought to provide blacks with housing opportunities as whites had. One resident says, “It’s not fake, it has values, that’s how it grew up.”

Biden studied history and political science at the unimpressive University of Delaware, then graduated from the unimpressive University of Syracuse with a law degree. At the age of 24, he married Neilia Hunter, with whom he had three children. At 29, he was elected one of the youngest senators in history.

A month later, his wife and children were in a car accident. She is the daughter of only one year passed away. With him were sons Hunter and Beau.

Joe Biden became a senator and a single father. To reconcile these two important positions, he continued to live in Delaware and took a train every day to the capital Washington to work. It takes about two hours to travel. Then at the end of the day, he took the same train back in time to put the children to bed. “We can find a new senator, but they can’t find another father,” Joe Biden said.

In Washington, Biden worked for 47 years, a professional politician. It was in the capital where the stuttering boy learned to talk to everyone. He was known to travel to both sides of the Senate. “He sat behind me in the Senate, so I had a lot of Joe Biden in my ear for a long time,” says former Senator Byron Dorgan, who was Biden’s colleague for 16 years.

“My daughter died after heart surgery. I was devastated. One night, he was sitting alone in the Senate, wondering if it was worth continuing. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and it was Joe Biden. He said, ‘I know what you’re feeling. It was a moment that I never forgot, which shows his empathic capacity ”, remembers Dorgan.

Georgetown University Professor of Public Policy Mark Rom explains: “The Senate is a collaborative effort. He had some achievements, but there is no legislation that marks his name ”.

At age 34 he married Jill Biden, with whom he has a daughter, Ashley. He tried to run for president in the 1988 elections. But he resigned because he plagiarized a speech.

In 2008, he tried again. But the same day he signed the application, he told the New York Observer newspaper: “You have the first popular African American, eloquent, bright, clean and beautiful. I mean, this is history for a book. ” “Biden loves to talk and doesn’t always think about what he’s saying,” says Mark Rom.

Barack Obama won the party’s nomination. But Biden won Obama’s nomination for vice president. “Joe Biden, you were the first decision I made and it was the best. For eight years, Joe was the last man in the room whenever I had to make an important decision, “says Obama.

In May 2011, Biden was also the last man in the room. And he gave the last piece of advice when Obama had to make a decision: if he was “okay” for the operation that would lead to the death of terrorist Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. Biden said, “Mr. President, my suggestion is: don’t do it.” But Obama went ahead and the moment was celebrated as one of the most important in the administration.

Seven women accused Biden of touching them inappropriately. In 2019, he apologized. He said he would pay more attention. In March, former assistant Tara Reed accused Biden of holding her against a wall and putting his hand under her dress in 1993. Biden denies it.

And the opposition is now targeting Biden’s son. When his father was a deputy and led anti-corruption actions in Ukraine, Hunter joined the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

“It’s hard to imagine that he was qualified for this job. It strikes me as the typical case of a child taking advantage of family connections to earn a lot of money, ”says Professor Mark Rom.

Hunter was not the son who was next to his father in the oath. The boy in the bed, Beau Biden, became a federal prosecutor and died in 2015 of brain cancer.

Joe Biden is the Democratic Party’s bid to bring voters closer to the image of a common, predictable and resilient citizen who wants to resolve the dust of chaos. Joe Biden is not a superstar like Obama or Clinton, he promises to attract little attention, undo the reality show and turn politics into politics, again.