I first met Joe Biden in the summer of 1996 at a national YMCA conference. We invited our state congressional representatives to speak briefly at a lunch on Capitol Hill.
Joe arrived 15 minutes before the end of the program. He spoke for 45, and got a standing ovation. My fellow high school students raved about his energy and enthusiasm.
For those of us who grew up in Delaware during Biden’s 36 years in the U.S. Senate, that was just the way things were.
We knew Joe had presidential ambitions—he had run briefly in 1987—but there were always more prominent people on the Democratic stage who crowded him out. The timing was never quite right, until 2020.
As Joe celebrates his 82nd birthday this week, it’s a good time to reflect on what he’s meant for Delaware—and what Delaware has meant to him. A few stories worth sharing:
The 3-county fly-in
During his first Senate campaign in 1972, Joe started a political tradition that lasted up until the pandemic—the three-county kickoff tour. It used to be that statewide candidates would announce in just one location. Joe grew it to three with an aerial tour, from New Castle to Sussex and then to Kent, tiny Beau riding on his lap.
An impossible mission
Biden created a legacy right from that first Senate campaign. He aimed to challenge a World War II veteran, Cale Boggs, who had been a judge, congressman, governor, and U.S. senator. (If that trajectory sounds familiar to you, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the one taken by retiring Senator Tom Carper.) Biden was never concerned about failing at much of anything, because he took on the impossible right from the start, beating Boggs by 3,162 votes—a squeaker margin of 1.4 percent.
Friends forever
It’s hard to imagine in today’s highly polarized environment, but bipartisanship was Biden’s watchword during both Republican and Democratic majorities in the Senate. He became close friends with his GOP colleague Bill Roth, and was often conveniently out of the state when other Democrats were challenging Roth. “I don’t think there was a single Biden that voted a straight ticket the last time you ran,” Biden told Roth later.
Tears in his eyes
The types of stories that were once told from the 1970s to the 2000s are no longer being shared because of the decline of traditional newspapers. One poignant example comes from March 1973 at a Democratic dinner in Georgetown a few months after the crash that killed Biden’s wife and baby daughter. When it was his turn to speak, he leaped up on the stage and began to cry. “I’ve never done this in public,” he said, tears falling as he walked off the stage. After a few minutes, he recovered his composure and continued, promising the teary-eyed audience: “I’ll try my best not to embarrass you.”
These kinds of vignettes are being lost to history, as reporters today don’t usually cover these types of events. We only know this story because of the late Ron Williams, then the Sussex bureau chief for The Morning News, who was in attendance that evening.
As Joe prepares to move on into his first real retirement—20 or so years after most Americans retire—it’s time to put political rancor aside. His record of public service, personal faith, and family values stands against anyone’s. He’s given America more than any person should have to, and we owe him some time for himself.
Dan Shortridge is a former Delaware journalist and the author of “Joe Biden’s Delaware” (The History Press, 2024), among other books. He lives in Philadelphia.
