The New York Times does a piece on how Joseph R. Biden ran for office In Delaware for decades ….
The piece shows a low key hometown guy that essentially OWNED his job and space in state politics….
One CAN understand how and why the past US Senator , Vice President and now President is going as his second campaign for President…
The piece does NOT deal with the 2020 election though….
In that one?
Biden seemed to break the mold of his past camapigns and pull off another win …
Yet this time?
He seems to have settled back into past habits*……
No doubt believing that he and his policies WILL win the election in the end….
In October 1984, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware was invited to address a conservative Baptist church near Wilmington as he campaigned for a third term.
Mr. Biden, hardly the favorite of social conservatives, was in hostile political territory. But as the incumbent, he was given the first speaking slot — and he used it to hold court uninterrupted for nearly an hour. Mr. Biden’s Republican opponent barely got to introduce himself before time was up for the event, while the dozens of other candidates there for the forum never got a word in.
The episode, from “Only in Delaware,” a political history of Delaware by Celia Cohen, a longtime Wilmington journalist, illustrates just how easily Mr. Biden was able to sweep challengers to the side — not just in that race, but throughout his Senate career. Incumbency gave him a staggering advantage.
In 30 years, Mr. Biden never encountered a serious threat to his office. His Republican opponents were underfunded, little-known, inexperienced or some combination of the three. None of them took more than 41 percent of the vote against him.
His re-election fight against former President Donald J. Trump — his 13th bid for federal office, all told — is shaping up to be the opposite of those long-ago Senate campaigns: travel-intensive, nasty and close. A rival is, for the first time with him atop the ticket, forcing him to make a compelling case for his return.
Before his 2020 presidential campaign, which in the general election was light on in-person events because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Biden had never had a harshly negative advertisement about his record in office or his character broadcast against him on television, according to the archive of congressional television and radio advertisements at the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma. None of his Senate rivals attacked him on TV, and he ended his two prior presidential campaigns before opponents got around to attacking him.
The Republicans who ran against Mr. Biden in Delaware described him as a strong incumbent who was widely liked, and much quicker on his feet during debates and candidate forums than the president they see today. Mr. Biden has ramped up his travel schedule with a flurry of carefully managed visits to battleground states in recent weeks, and the 81-year-old president will be expected to keep up the pace while avoiding the sort of verbal flubs that often dog his public appearances….
…
In Delaware, Mr. Biden was so well known and, in his early years in office, had such a wellspring of sympathy from voters after the tragic crash that killed his first wife and daughter, that no rival ever mounted a sustained case that he should not be re-elected. For years, bumper stickers promoting his re-election just said “Joe,” while opponents lost with an array of long-forgotten slogans.
“I don’t think he ever broke a sweat once he was an incumbent,” said Jane Brady, a Republican who lost to Mr. Biden by 27 points in 1990.
The only negative ad run against Mr. Biden between 1978 and 2008, according to the University of Oklahoma’s archive, is one that his campaign would most likely embrace today. That 30-second spot reminded viewers that President Ronald Reagan endorsed John Burris, Mr. Biden’s Republican challenger in 1984, while Mr. Biden backed the unpopular Democratic presidential nominee, Walter Mondale….
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Mr. Trump, 77, is a rare president to be defeated while seeking a second term and has a host of political vulnerabilities, including the criminal cases and his role in undoing the constitutional right to an abortion. He has spent most of the days since his New York trial began in court, as is required, while Mr. Biden has hit the campaign trail, making stops in battleground states.
Mr. Biden’s 2024 campaign aides said his 2020 victory over Mr. Trump, who spared little expense in attacking him, is sufficient evidence that he can run a successful and modern campaign.
“After defeating over 20 primary candidates, Joe Biden won more votes than any other candidate in our country’s history and became just the third person to defeat an incumbent president in the last century,” said Lauren Hitt, a campaign spokeswoman. “This November, he’ll beat Trump and the naysayers again.”….
Note…
*I have ranted here about Biden’s lack of engagement in the 2024 campaign….
This piece from gives a backgrounder on ‘Who Joe Biden is’ and why he has been reluctan to run a confrontational effort against Donald Trump up to now…
image…Mr. Biden has been described as a strong incumbent who was widely liked in Delaware, and much quicker on his feet during debates and candidate forums than the president they see today.Credit…Paul Hosefros/The New York Times