March 2020 is a time most people will remember where they were and what they were doing when the nation, the world, shut down. COVID-19, a Coronavirus, hit our shores and you know the rest. You lived it.
2020 was a presidential election year. Donald Trump sought reelection, and a mass stable of Democrats sought to replace him. Twenty-nine men and women announced their candidacies, but eighteen (including Kamala Harris) withdrew before voting began. After a slow start in the first few contests, Former Vice President Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary and then took ten of fifteen election caucuses and primaries on Super Tuesday. He became the presumptive nominee of the party on April 8th. With no disrespect to those who died, lost loved ones, and still suffer from the virus, Joe Biden benefited from it.
If you read the beginning and any of my previous blogs, I am not promoting policies or politics. I am writing history and attempting to do political analysis. This is my take on the 2020 election and the factors involved.
Joe Biden had a stutter as a child. There is a famous story when a nun made fun of Biden by calling him “Mr. Bu-bu-bu-Biden.” Young Joey was so enraged he left the school and walked home. When explaining why the story to his mother, she became angry and returned to the school. His mom confronted the sister and said: “If you ever speak to my son like that again, I’ll come back and rip that bonnet off your head.” I like Mrs. Biden.
The future public servant overcame his stutter and served six terms in the United States Senate and two terms as vice president. Forty-four years is a long and impressive career in public service. In 2016, he considered running but decided against it after losing his son Beau the previous year. Four years later he was ready to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency.
There is one thing consistent in Joe Biden’s career, his foot in his mouth. When he announced his intentions for a third attempt at the White House in 2019 (he had run in 1988 and 2008) he got the issue out in the open right from the start admitting “I’m a gaffe machine[i].” Remember this in 2019, not 2023 or 2024. There is even a 24:32 compilation of Biden gaffes on YouTube.
How did the pandemic help him? Biden famously stayed home at his home in Delaware. Donald Trump criticized him for it. He was an occasional online presence, but staying home meant no campaigning, public appearances, speeches, and most of all, misspeaks. When his campaign released video footage of him, it could be after a few takes to get it right. Biden has often been described as wordy or verbose, but he wasn’t in 2020. Lockdowns were an advantage to his candidacy.
Biden did debate Trump twice that year with the scheduled third match canceled due to COVID. Polls showed the former vice president won both discussions against the former president. He went on to win a very, very narrow victory over Trump on November 3rd becoming the oldest president in American history replacing the third oldest.
Coincidentally, or ironically, the COVID pandemic was dumped into the new president’s lap on January 20, 2021.
[i] https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/04/politics/joe-biden-most-qualified-person-president-2020/index.html
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