Advisers to former Vice President Joe Biden are finalizing plans for the launch of his presidential campaign next week, ending months of suspense that has hung over the Democratic nominating race. "My intention from the beginning was if I were to tun would be the last person to announce," he said after delivering the second of three speeches since mid-March to union audiences. "We'll find out whether I can win in a primary."
Biden has eyed the presidency for most of his decades-long career, running twice before. Both campaigns ended early - in the 1988, long before the first votes were cast as he faced accusations of plagiarism, and in 2008 after a disappointing finish in the lead-off Iowa caucuses. In debates during that 2008 primary fight, then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Biden often found their views in sync. After Obama upset Hillary Clinton to win the nomination, he sought to balance out the ticket by tapping Biden as his running mate, bringing on board an experienced legislator and foreign policy expert.
While Biden has become an elder statesman who could be an antidote to the chaotic Trump era, his long track record also features past support for policies now anathema to broad swaths of the Democratic electorate. Biden authored the Violence Against Women Act, helped pass a ban on assault weapons and embraced same-sex marriage even before Obama did. He also voted in support of the 2002 Iraq War authorization, was a lead author of a 1994 crime bill that swelled the nation's prison population, and, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, presided over theClarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation, including handling testimony by Anita Hill that Thomas had sexually harassed her.
Weeks before Biden's decision, his intensely personal manner itself became an issue, after a Nevada Democrat described unwelcome physical contact by the then-vice president as they prepared to take the stage at a campaign event in 2014. After other woman also described similar interactions, Biden acknowledged in an online video that "social norms are changing," and that what he viewed as "gestures of support and encouragement" have sometimes made people uncomfortable. "I think it's going to have to change somewhat how I campaign," he told NBC News that week.
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