Many of Joe Biden's policies are routine stuff for Democrats. But two things stand out for their ambition
1972 the people of Delaware voted to send Joe Biden, a brash, garrulous county councilman, to the United States Senate—even though he would not turn 30, the Senate’s age minimum, for another two weeks. During the campaign he had sought both to use and downplay his youth. His ads touted “new thinking” and “new solutions”; the compliments he paid his 63-year-old opponent on the success of his fights against Stalin and polio were delivered with a faultless backhand.
It is not just that Americans by and large see him as approachable and good-hearted. They also know his life’s sorrows. Mr Biden’s first wife, Neilia, died in a car crash with their one-year-old daughter, Naomi, shortly after that first victory in 1972. His son Beau, who gave a moving speech about that loss when Mr Biden was nominated to be Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008, died of cancer in 2015. The tempering of grief has given Mr Biden deep reserves of empathy.
Vice-presidents have every chance of getting their party’s nomination if they want it. But in 2015, wracked by grief over Beau’s death, Mr Biden decided that he didn’t. He left public office, seemingly for good. Family and close advisers say it was Mr Trump’s coddling of white supremacists who marched on Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 which prompted him to rejoin the political fray. He campaigned for dozens of Democrats in the midterms; in March last year he announced his candidacy .
Much of it is routine stuff for Democrats in 2020: a higher minimum wage, protection for unions, reform of bankruptcy and campaign-finance laws and so on. Two things stand out for their ambition. The first is health care. Republicans are once again pushing to end Mr Obama’s Affordable Care Act without offering a replacement. The Democratic left wants it replaced with Medicare for All.
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