I’ve now reached the age where I’m acutely aware of the phenomenon that as we grow older, time moves more quickly. No. Sprints. Gallops. Albert Einstein had an explanation for this. He concluded that time is relative; the rate at which it passes depends on our frame of reference. And here’s mine: As the 2024 election year gets underway, it’s been 40 years since I first began covering presidential campaigns.
It’s been almost that long since I first covered Joe Biden when he announced his campaign for president at the Amtrak station in Wilmington, Delaware, in June 1987. He was a young political phenom back then, having been elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 at age 29. And with more than a decade in the Senate under his belt, he was just 44 when he announced that first run for the White House.
Credit: Bill Nigut / Bill.Nigut@ajc.com
Credit: Bill Nigut / Bill.Nigut@ajc.com
After he finished his speech at the train station, Biden, his top supporters and those of us in the traveling press boarded an Amtrak train for the 90-minute ride to Washington’s Union Station, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
There was an elegiac tone to the announcement. It was staged to remind everyone of how Biden coped with the tragedy that had befallen his family years earlier. Shortly after he won the 1972 Senate election, his first wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident. He was left to care for his two very young sons, Beau and Hunter, and so he made that Amtrak trek to and from Wilmington and Washington every day while he served in the Senate. The importance of family became an ongoing theme of his first presidential race.
Now, as he launches his bid for reelection in 2024, there are stinging ironies related to the 1988 campaign:
The strong family ties Biden emphasized in his first run have now been turned upside down by a GOP meme decrying “the Biden crime family,” as Hunter Biden faces federal tax charges and Republicans in the House pursue an impeachment investigation to tie President Biden to some of Hunter’s questionable business deals with foreign entities.
Son Beau, who along with Hunter was spared in the crash that killed his mother and sister, tragically died at age 46 of a brain tumor.
Perhaps most ironic of all is that the Biden 1988 presidential run lasted just three months. He was forced to withdraw for what today would likely be considered a one-day story at best. It was revealed that he had inflated his law school academic record and had included in campaign speeches lines “borrowed” without attribution from those given by other political leaders. And yet this year, his general election opponent is likely to be a man who remains the leader in the GOP race despite facing 91 criminal counts that have only made him more popular among voters in his base.
And finally, of course, Biden is no longer a young rising star of the Democratic Party. He runs for reelection at 81 years old. But Einstein had thoughts about that, too:
“Life is like riding a bicycle,” he said. “To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Remember it was about 18 months ago that the president took a tumble from his bicycle. From now until November, though, he’ll hope to keep it moving straight and steady.
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