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Why Joe Biden Didn't Run . . . And Why He's Not Ruling Out 2020
Retweeted by RogueAltGov: https://twitter.com/RogueAltGov
A great article about @JoeBiden's upcoming new book and his political prospects moving forward.
Link to tweet
WHY JOE BIDEN DIDN’T RUN . . . AND WHY HE’S NOT RULING OUT 2020
In a cruel twist, Joe Biden’s planned 2016 presidential campaign was upended by the death of its foremost booster, his 46-year-old son, Beau, from brain cancer. Will the former vice president make a run in 2020? With the publication of his book Promise Me, Dad, recalling that tragic period, Biden opens up about the emotional—and political—challenges he faces.
BY DAVID KAMP
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANNIE LEIBOVITZ
DECEMBER 2017
Joe Biden, the former vice president, was four minutes and forty seconds into discussing his new book, Promise Me, Dad, when he got snagged on a memory. We were sitting in the den of his vacation home, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It was a hot day in late summer, and while his wife, Jill, and his sister, Valerie, milled around nearby in casual workout gear, Biden was smartly attired in a checked dress shirt, charcoal trousers, and black tassel loafers worn without socks—as if primed for an afternoon of shirtsleeve campaigning. In his genially raconteur-ish Uncle Joe way, he recalled how eye-opening it was, 25 years ago, to read Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes, a chronicle of the 1988 presidential election that is considered a modern classic of political nonfiction. Biden was one of six candidates whose campaigns granted Cramer nearly unfettered access. When the book came out, in 1992, Biden told me, he spent four hours discussing it with another of the ‘88 race’s also-rans, Senator Bob Dole: “I said to him, ‘You know, I looked at it, and there’s things in there I don’t like, but I can’t say they’re not true.’ ”
In a cruel twist, Joe Biden’s planned 2016 presidential campaign was upended by the death of its foremost booster, his 46-year-old son, Beau, from brain cancer. Will the former vice president make a run in 2020? With the publication of his book Promise Me, Dad, recalling that tragic period, Biden opens up about the emotional—and political—challenges he faces.
BY DAVID KAMP
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANNIE LEIBOVITZ
DECEMBER 2017
Joe Biden, the former vice president, was four minutes and forty seconds into discussing his new book, Promise Me, Dad, when he got snagged on a memory. We were sitting in the den of his vacation home, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It was a hot day in late summer, and while his wife, Jill, and his sister, Valerie, milled around nearby in casual workout gear, Biden was smartly attired in a checked dress shirt, charcoal trousers, and black tassel loafers worn without socks—as if primed for an afternoon of shirtsleeve campaigning. In his genially raconteur-ish Uncle Joe way, he recalled how eye-opening it was, 25 years ago, to read Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes, a chronicle of the 1988 presidential election that is considered a modern classic of political nonfiction. Biden was one of six candidates whose campaigns granted Cramer nearly unfettered access. When the book came out, in 1992, Biden told me, he spent four hours discussing it with another of the ‘88 race’s also-rans, Senator Bob Dole: “I said to him, ‘You know, I looked at it, and there’s things in there I don’t like, but I can’t say they’re not true.’ ”
