Washington - Former Vice President Joe
Biden, a moderate who has made his appeal to working-class
voters that deserted the Democrats in 2016 a key part of his
political identity, launched a bid for the White House on
Thursday as the party's instant frontrunner.
Biden announced the third presidential bid of his career by
video on YouTube and other social media. He is expected to make
his first public appearance as a candidate on Monday at an event
in Pittsburgh featuring union members, a key constituency.
Biden, 76, had been wrestling for months over whether to
run. His candidacy will face numerous questions, including
whether he is too old and too centrist for a Democratic Party
yearning for fresh faces and increasingly propelled by its more
vocal liberal wing.
Still, he starts as the leader of the pack in opinion polls
of a Democratic field that now will total 20 contenders seeking
the chance to challenge President Donald Trump, the likely
Republican nominee, in November 2020.
Critics say his standing in polls is largely a function of
name recognition for the former U.S. senator from Delaware,
whose more than four decades in public service includes eight
years as President Barack Obama's No. 2 in the White House.
As speculation about his bid mounted, Biden faced new
questions about his longtime propensity for touching and kissing
strangers at political events, with several women coming forward
to say he had made them feel uncomfortable.
Biden struggled in his response to the concerns, at times
joking about his behavior. But ultimately, he apologized and
said he recognized standards for personal conduct had evolved in
the wake of the #MeToo movement.
Trump and his allies seized on the flap, attempting to
weaken perhaps his top rival before Biden entered the race.
Even so, Biden was determined to push forward, arguing his
background, experience and resume best positioned him to take on
Trump next year.
In a speech to union members in April, Biden called Trump a
"tragedy in two acts."
"This country can’t afford more years of a president looking
to settle personal scores," he said.
Biden's candidacy will offer early hints about whether
Democrats are more interested in finding a centrist who can win
over the white working-class voters who went for Trump in 2016,
or someone who can fire up the party's diverse progressive wing,
such as Senators Kamala Harris of California, Bernie Sanders of
Vermont or Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Biden's long history in the Senate, where he was a leading
voice on foreign policy, will give liberal activists plenty to
criticize. As Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, he angered
women's rights activists with his handling of sexual harassment
allegations against Clarence Thomas during the justice's 1991
Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
He also has been criticized for his ties to the financial
industry, which is prominent in his home state of Delaware, and
for his authorship of a 1994 crime act that led to increased
incarceration rates.
Biden has been one of the party's more aggressive Trump
critics. Last year, he said he would "beat the hell" out of
Trump if the two were in high school because of the way the
president has talked about women. That prompted Trump to call
him "Crazy Joe Biden" and claim on Twitter that Biden would "go
down fast and hard, crying all the way" if they fought.
Biden later lamented the exchange, saying "I shouldn't get
down in the mosh pit with this guy."
Known for his verbal gaffes on the campaign trail, Biden
failed to gain traction with voters during his previous runs in
1988 and 2008.
He dropped his 1988 bid amid allegations he plagiarized some
of his stump oratory and early academic work. But his experience
and strong debate performances in 2008 impressed Obama enough
that he tapped Biden as his running mate.
Biden decided against a 2016 presidential bid after a
lengthy public period of indecision as he wrestled with doubts
about whether he and his family were ready for a grueling
campaign while mourning his son Beau, who died of brain cancer
in May 2015. His son had urged him to run.
Biden faced some of the same family considerations this time
around, as he is still coping with Beau's death while his other
son, Hunter, has gone through a divorce amid a reported
relationship with Beau's widow.