Suddenly being the experienced Washington insider who was number two to Obama could be more of an asset than a liability
Joe Biden is a candidate whose performance on the stump ranges from badly flawed to awful. He is a meandering, unfocused speaker, often unable to complete a sentence, let alone a thought, with a record in office that is decidedly patchy, marred by several past positions he struggles to defend. And yet Biden is now the frontrunner for his party’s nomination to take on Donald Trump. What’s more, the current mood, and specifically the threat of coronavirus, might just turn his defining weakness into a strength – and give him a serious shot at the White House.
I saw his limitations for myself last month in Hudson, New Hampshire, as he paced around a high school gymnasium delivering a rambling monologue that suggested a politician well past his prime. Stronger on autobiography than policy, he strung together childhood memories, mottos taught him by his father and a kind of perplexed outrage that Trump’s America was not a country he recognised any more: “What’s this all about?” he asked, as if befuddled. “What do we stand for?” In New Hampshire, he finished fifth.
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Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
