The Memo: Biden closes in on triumph or disaster

Joe Biden is less than three months away from the biggest triumph or disaster of his political career.

Victory in the presidential election on Nov. 3 would be the capstone to Biden’s half-century in public life. Defeat at the hands of President Trump would be a scarcely imaginable humiliation.

Biden, a proud man despite his avuncular public image, knows the stakes.

Earlier this year, he mused on the possibility of defeat while being profiled by Mark Leibovich of The New York Times.

“It’s not like: I lose the race, OK, I just lost the race to John McCain, or lost the race to — whoever,” Biden said. “But — God, you know?”

Biden repeatedly describes the 2020 election as a battle for the “soul of America.” He is in a strong position right now but could yet lose that battle. The election of 2016 — which Biden sat out as a candidate, to his supporters’ chagrin — proved nothing is to be taken for granted.

Trump is antithetical to much of what Biden holds dear, above and beyond political ideology.

Biden, who served in the Senate for more than 30 years, reveres the ways of Washington and hankers after a return to old-style comity. Trump campaigned — and has governed — as if he wants to trample that attitude into the ground. 

Trump tweets insults at opponents and other inflammatory remarks on an almost daily basis. Biden promises basic decency rather than bellicose disruption.

“Biden is compassionate and empathetic, and Trump is not,” Democratic strategist Robert Shrum said. “Biden has deep experience and knowledge about government and Trump has none, even after four years.”

Historically, one of the most marked oddities of the Biden candidacy is stark — he is challenging an incumbent president, but his central appeal is a return to something like the status quo.

“Trump is fundamentally different from any president we have ever had, both in temperament and in terms of being a democrat with a small d,” said Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky.

“There is a desire for a return to normalcy not from an ideological, policy perspective, but from a procedural perspective,” Roginsky said.

A Biden victory, in the twilight of his career, would cast the Trump presidency as an aberration. A Biden defeat would suggest the nation is one that Biden no longer understands.

“This is a serious moment,” Biden said on Aug. 12, at his first public appearance with his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). “A life-changing election for this nation.”

Biden’s bet that “business as usual” has a strong appeal right now looks like it might be right. 

Opinion polls show a significant lead for Biden.

As of Aug. 16, he led Trump in the RealClearPolitics national polling average by more than 7 percentage points. He also led across the key battleground states of Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Biden was even competitive in two states that are usually reliably Republican: Georgia and Texas.

Data site FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast model on Aug. 16 gave Biden a 71 percent chance of prevailing.

Biden’s unveiling of Harris as his running mate on Aug. 11 was the most high-profile moment since he clinched the Democratic nomination.

If things go according to plan, Biden would be the first president with a Black woman as his vice president, having previously served as the number two to President Obama, the first Black president.

The enormous attention focused on Harris also emphasized something more problematic for Biden, however — his age, and the attendant speculation as to whether he will run for reelection in 2024 if he wins in November. Biden, 77, has referred to himself as a “transition candidate.”

The Trump campaign has been seeking to exploit Biden’s age all year, alleging he lacks mental acuity. No sooner had Biden announced Harris, 55, as his running mate than the Trump team was suggesting she would be the dominant force on the ticket, pulling the aging Biden to the left.

Biden will need to prove his vigor, starting Thursday evening, when he formally accepts his party’s presidential nomination.

He will do so not from a packed arena in Milwaukee, as was originally planned, but from his home state of Delaware — yet one more example of how the coronavirus crisis has reshaped the political landscape.

The formal acceptance of the nomination will be a moment made sweeter for Biden by the memory of past defeats.

His first presidential campaign, in 1988, imploded amid accusations of plagiarism. His second, 20 years later, failed to get traction as he was overshadowed by bigger names in the field, including Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Biden has in the past told reporters that he could live with never becoming president. When he passed up the 2016 race, that seemed likely to be his fate.

He has somber reasons for understanding there is more to life than politics. He has suffered two tragedies — the loss of his first wife and infant daughter in a 1972 car crash, and the death of his son Beau Biden from brain cancer in 2015.

Now he stands finally ready to be crowned as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. 

The highest prize of all is near — but not yet in his grasp.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on Donald Trump’s presidency.