Back on the Train to Delaware
By midday Monday eastern time, the presidency of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., will have ended, four years to the minute from when it started.
There’s no way to accurately measure failure or success of a term like that for decades, but public opinion in real time is not positive. And the size of the victory by Republicans last November would suggest it was a full repudiation of Biden and the Democrats—largely in the same way the 2016 election was. But obviously politics is cyclical, and even sharp shifts in voting behavior don’t take all that long to come about.
Ultimately, I think the actual term will be seen as a net negative, what with hot spots boiling over all over the world, inflation topping 40-year highs, etc. You know about all that.
Personally, it’s been hard for me to watch Biden over this time. Not just because I have relatives who have declined due to dementia and related issues, but because this Joe Biden, the one who spoke so darkly about the future in his Oval Office address last Wednesday, is far from the one I’ve come across in person over time.
Let’s face it, if you were in Iowa over the past 40 years, you had a chance to connect with Joe Biden directly—he campaigned for president here three times, after all. And if you held a microphone for a living as I do, your access was even greater.
The last times I had any extended contact with him were in the first half of 2007, in advance of the caucuses in early January 2008. Glib, friendly, seen by many as a moderate sort. We talked about his time teaching at a university on weekends, when he wasn’t sure if he would fully recover from the brain surgery he had following that first presidential run 20 years before, after being diagnosed with aneurysms. He autographed a yard sign, personalizing it with my name and the phrase, “good to see you again”…I still have that, because my contact with that Joe Biden was pleasant.
And for whatever reason—age, owing voting blocs who put him in the White House, evolution of policy positions—the Joe Biden who has been in the office the last four years is hardly recognizable to me from the one we previously saw in Iowa. I much prefer the other one, the one who espoused optimism rather than the darkness of today.
In that respect, and because of the drastic policies he has recently advocated, I’ll be glad when we can with respect call him a former president.
