Change marks tragic end for the Biden presidency

All political lives end in tragedy.

- Prashant Jha

WASHINGTON:

Think about Joe Biden. A boy born with a stutter, Biden was the youngest Senator who just met the minimum age threshold of 30 before taking oath back in 1972.

He was the epitome of personal courage and sacrifice who lost his wife and daughter in an accident, at the same time as his Senate win, and took the Amtrak every day from DC to Wilmington to be with his two young sons. He was the upright young politician who became the first senator outside Georgia to endorse Jimmy Carter for president.

He rose up the ranks of the judiciary and foreign relations committees in the Senate. He flirted with a presidential run in 1988, but had to withdraw because of charges of plagiarising a speech, a turn of fate that turned out to be a blessing because he had to undergo a brain aneurism surgery right after.

Twenty years later, in 2008, Biden threw his hat in the presidential ring again, only to see his candidacy collapse as a prodigious political talent rose in the form of Barack Obama. But Obama needed a Washington veteran with relationships on the Hill, and Biden stepped in as his running mate and then Vice President for eight long years. Biden lost his son, Beau, to cancer, and it appeared he won't attempt a presidential run again. Obama, perhaps as a part of a prior understanding, backed Hillary Clinton as the party nominee. But Biden, it seems, had wanted to run, and never forgave Obama for passing him over. When Clinton lost to Trump, Biden felt even more vindicated, convinced he could have beaten the Republican nominee.

And then 2020 happened. Biden decided to contest in the most unusual of presidential races.