Joe Biden Beatrice Gormley (classic children's novels txt) 📖

wasn’t committing himself to actually running in 1988. He was only getting himself known around the country, demonstrating that he could appeal to audiences of voters. He was making connections with people who could donate money and help him campaign if he did run.

Besides, Joe Biden was still first and foremost a father. Ashley, only four years old in 1985, was getting the same devoted treatment that Joe had lavished on Beau and Hunter when they were little. Years later, Ashley remembered him as always being around, even though he worked in Washington.

“I talked to him two times a day by phone,” Ashley told Biden’s biographer Jules Witcover. “He was always home at night, most of the nights, to catch dinner and to tuck us into bed.” Biden still had the same rule about phone calls too: “If us kids called, that was it.” No matter how important a meeting was, Biden’s staff knew to get him out of it for a phone call from one of his children.

One thing in Washington that Biden wanted to change, if he did run, and if he was elected, was the Reagan administration’s policy toward the white government of South Africa. The Black majority were struggling against oppression by the white minority, under a harsh segregation system called “apartheid.” In the US, there was a strong movement to punish the government of South Africa with economic sanctions.

But President Reagan and his secretary of state, George Shultz, preferred a policy of “constructive engagement” with South Africa’s white government. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 1986, Biden reproached Secretary Shultz for not coming down harder on South Africa. “I’m ashamed of the lack of moral backbone to this policy.”

Some criticized Biden for this dramatic speech, in which he actually waved his fist at Secretary of State Shultz. They saw it as grandstanding, putting on a performance for the media audience rather than talking to Shultz. But Biden refused to be embarrassed. He told reporters, “There are certain things worth getting mad about.”

By January 1987, Joe Biden had a good feeling about his chances in the 1988 presidential race. He was on the point of publicly announcing that he was running for president. But one problem he’d ignored up until now was that he didn’t have a good relationship with the national media.

In a way this was odd, for someone as friendly and social as Biden. But during his first years in the Senate, when he was suffering grief over Neilia’s death, he’d avoided talking to the press as much as possible. Even after that period, he still dashed for the train at the end of the day, anxious to get home to Beau and Hunter. Other politicians, staying around to have a cup of coffee or dinner with the reporters who covered the Capitol, made valuable personal connections.

As a result, Biden’s image with the national media was almost a cartoon: a tall guy with a great smile and a flair for connecting with an audience, but not much else. Joe Biden looked like a senator, and he talked like a senator—in fact, he had a reputation for talking on and on. But was there anything behind the image?

As one reporter put it, was Biden “more of a show horse than a work horse”? His fellow senators knew how hard he worked, but the national reporters might not dig up that information. However, Joe was confident that at least his character—his honesty, his “word as a Biden”—could not be attacked.

These days he had another problem to ignore: headaches. He’d never had headaches before this year, but by early 1987 he often felt as if his head were in a vise. He gulped extra-strength Tylenol, sometimes ten a day, as he flew from California to Iowa to Alabama to give speeches and shake hands. During one appearance in New Hampshire in March, Biden’s pain was so severe that he had to duck backstage, retching. He barely managed to finish that speech.

At another event, he lost his temper at a questioner in the audience. That day Biden was not only suffering from splitting headaches but was also coming down with the flu. He thought the questioner was doubting his intelligence, and he went into a rant about his IQ and his outstanding record in college and law school. He hardly knew what he was saying. Afterward, he realized he’d exaggerated quite a bit.

This same year, Biden’s duties in the Senate were heavier than ever. In January he’d become chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He knew that the Reagan administration was hoping to appoint a conservative judge to the Supreme Court. There were several older justices on the court who might retire or die, giving the president the chance to replace them. The question was, could Joe Biden do his vital work as a senator and run for president of the United States at the same time?

Even more important, as Jill pointed out, could Joe be the devoted husband and father he wanted to be? Could he still show up for family birthdays or school plays? She felt their life was perfect now the way it was. Beau would graduate from Archmere that spring, with Hunter only a year behind. Ashley was starting elementary school.

And although Joe didn’t want to admit it, the headaches wouldn’t go away.

Joe Biden carefully scheduled his announcement to avoid Beau’s graduation from Archmere and Jill’s and Ashley’s birthdays. On June 9, 1987, in a dramatic stunt, Biden told a cheering crowd at the Wilmington train station that he was indeed running for president. Then he and his whole family rode a chartered train to Washington.

That same day in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Scranton Tribune’s proud front-page story was all about Senator Joseph R. Biden and his bid for the presidency. And they’d dug up and reprinted the old photograph of young Joey Biden watching former president Truman in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade.

Joe Biden was smart and talented, he had a