Biden's Path to the Presidency
On April 19, former vice president Joe Biden announced his candidacy for President of the United States. In his announcement video, Biden presented himself as a unifier, someone who would bring the country together. “America is an idea,” he soberly spoke, “An idea that is stronger than any army. Bigger than any ocean. More powerful than any dictator or tyrant.”
By appearing as a moderate, Biden has positioned himself to be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Polls show Biden already in the high thirties to high forties. In a crowded field of twenty-two candidates (and by the time this is published it will probably be eighty), that is impressive. Biden has already picked up many key endorsements, including a key endorsement from Senator Bob Casey. Senator Casey is from Pennsylvania, an extremely important swing-state that President Donald Trump won on his way to the White House in 2016. Picking up Casey’s endorsement shows the avenue Biden will take during the campaign, an avenue that might be to his detriment.
With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the Democratic Party has moved even more to the left than before. Ideas once seen out of the mainstream of American politics are now common policy proposals for the Democratic Party. Every candidate has either endorsed or at least paid lip-service to Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-All plan and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. But not Joe Biden. He, so far, has not expressed support for either proposal. And why should he? He was vice president for eight years to Barack Obama, the man who signed the most significant healthcare plan in recent years into law, signed the United States into the Paris Climate Agreement, and will end up in Democratic lore as one of the best presidents in history.
Biden is running to win the support of what is called the “Hidden Democratic Party.” This hidden party is older, more moderate, more educated, and more working class than people think. This group is not the “woke” party seen on social media pursuing radical social justice and promoting socialism. This hidden party consists of people who are tired of President Trump’s antics and the endless drama coming out of the Oval Office. Biden is running to become the foil to Donald Trump. He is focusing his campaign as a “return to normalcy,” which was the same slogan Warren G. Harding used in 1920. Biden will promote his campaign as the return to a relaxed kind of politics; the type of politics that is not as heated and tribal as those of today. Biden is seen as the candidate who will bring back the “good ole days” of the Obama presidency, the one without any scandals (besides ignoring the fact that the Obama presidency was just as scandalized as the rest).
Biden’s strongest appeal will be as the blue-collar worker- the union man who will peel away the support President Trump had in 2016 and deliver the presidency once again to the Democrats. But in order to do this, Biden must first survive the primary. Typically, candidates try to become as ideological as possible, moving as far left or right as they can without appearing extreme and out-of-the mainstream in order to win the base of support of their respective parties. This will be especially true in the 2020 Democratic primaries, and that could possibly become Biden’s downfall.
As the Democratic Party becomes more “woke” and more intersectional, Biden will find himself appear out of touch and out of his time. Biden is old, white, and male, and that is just enough for him to become toxic to the more left-leaning portion of the party. His long career in politics has given Biden a very large policy-opinion portfolio, and some of his past support for policies like the 1994 Crime Bill and his opposition to forced busing make him appear opposed to the “fresh” ideas of today’s Democratic Party. Biden knows this, and that is why he is portraying himself as a moderate and hoping that the quiet, moderate Democrats show up and out-vote the loud, woke Democrats.
It is still extremely early, and a lot of things could possibly go wrong. Biden has been in office for a very long time and his past mistakes might still come back to bite him in the primaries. Biden is gaffe-prone as well, and his mouth could potentially get him into trouble. His age will become a factor too: do the American people in general, nevermind the Democrats, really want a 76-year old man as president? However, any doubts voters might have about good ole “Uncle Joe” will be quickly quelled if former president Barack Obama decides to endorse his vice president. At that point, it will be a straight shot to the nomination for Biden.
In comparing Biden to the rest of the Democratic field, he seems to be the safest choice and the most capable pick to take on Donald Trump in the general election in 2020. His blue-collar appearance and his “return to normalcy” type of campaigning can win him the presidency come November of 2020. However, Joe Biden must first survive the Democratic primaries, and the extreme policies his party is espousing could potentially make it very difficult for him to get the nomination. If Biden ends up sealing the nomination, he will win the presidency. But if he loses and a Bernie Sanders-esque candidate becomes the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump will be waltzing into four more years by an even larger margin than before.