If you only read this blog for thoughts and opinions about education, here’s one you can skip.

I’ve been thinking about Joe Biden.

If you think this is going to be one of those ‘Joe Biden was not even close to my favorite candidate but we all have to vote for him because we’re at the edge of the abyss’ blogs—it’s not.  (Although that’s true.) 

It’s also not a blog about how we have to fix Joe Biden, by pushing him leftward and micro-managing all the choices he makes, beginning with the woman who ultimately becomes his Vice-Presidential pick. It’s already obvious that whomever he chooses, there will be a segment of likely Democratic voters who think she’s the wrong choice and will post long strings of articles critical of her former career, lack of proper experience, age, and personality.

Nor is it a blog about policy, although policy is totally, totally my thing. We can fly-speck every piece of legislation Joe Biden has ever had his hands on, going back more than 45 years, the reasonable and the terrible. But as the guy currently occupying the White House illustrates—a policy platform is just a piece of paper, not (as you may have assumed) an important statement of the party’s core principles and goals.

I mean this literally—the Republicans just announced they will, in fact, be recycling their old platform from 2016; Jared wants to shrink it down to a bulleted 3 x 5 card. He probably wants to drown it in a bathtub, too.

This year, for them, it’s all about Trump: Love him or leave him. The rest? Meaningless detail.

The Republicans obviously understand how little most Americans care about policy specifics. It makes me wonder why the people I’m in conversation with have started so many social media fights over such marginal issues as which candidate had the most extravagant education funding multipliers, the most generous  health care plan, or the most ideologically pure campaign staffers.

A few weeks ago, friends I respect were posting pieces and supportive thoughts about Tara Reade, the woman who accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her, decades ago. These were people who—like me—were disappointed that we ended up with Joe Biden. They saw him as a deeply, irreparably flawed candidate and Reade as a woman who, like Christine Blausey Ford, had just been afraid to come forward.

There was heat on some of these threads, anger over what appeared to be a double standard in defending some women who had been harassed, but castigating others. Most people were willing to admit that we will never know the truth, but some kept the sharp criticisms of Biden rolling, saying inflammatory things like ‘We shouldn’t have to choose between two rapists’– way over the line.

What did they hope to gain? Well, maybe a brokered convention. Or a Joe Biden who realized he wasn’t up to the fight–and withdrew his name. Someone else to run against Trump. I’m not just spit-balling here. These were things people put in writing. They couldn’t vote for him.

Since then, Reade’s story has fallen apart, pretty convincingly, through a lot of good reporting—like this. And this, and this, and this—and, most comprehensively, this. It’s even possible to imagine that we have learned some things about accusations of sexual misconduct, and how to sort out those that have merit from those that emerge from some other place.

But that still leaves us with Joe Biden, a man about whom many people on the left express marginal enthusiasm or outright contempt. How did we get here?

Go back—way back, a year ago. From June 17, 2019:

 Former Vice President Joe Biden is still leading the Democratic primary, but is potentially seeing some soft spots in his foundation, according to a group of polls released in recent days. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders has plateaued, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren is surging, with Sen. Kamala Harris and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg holding steady right behind the top three.

It’s hard to remember, but Biden led the pack for many months in 2019. Pundits said it was just name recognition, and Biden’s association with a popular former president. The current POTUS was cooking up crooked ways to destroy the Biden family, a quid pro quo that would play out on TV for half the year and reveal the depth of rot and feckless power-mongering in one party. Plus, there were other, better choices for President—both on the progressive side and more centrist candidates.

It seems remarkable now that we ended up with Uncle Joe, the uninspiring veteran pol with the long history of mistakes, gaffes and foibles.

Then we had a grossly mismanaged pandemic. And millions of outraged citizens calling for change, marching in the streets in face masks. And the military reminding the current president its job was to protect our nation, not Neiman Marcus or Tiffany’s.

I have started to think of Joe Biden as the boy next door, or the bowl of chicken noodle soup we long for when we’re sick. Bland, but soothing, something that everyone likes when they can’t breathe—literally or metaphorically.

He may, in fact, be just the ticket—someone disillusioned white men who thought Trump could give them back their jobs would vote for, seeing him as a blue-collar everyman. Someone white suburban women, fed up with the white male phalanxes in every WH photo op, could vote for. And we already know that it was black voters who put Biden back into the primary.

At this moment, I doubt if there’s another Democrat (including the ones I was enthusiastic about) who would be a more universally acceptable candidate to America. Joe isn’t breaking down any barriers, true, but what we need right now is someone a strong majority can vote for.

There’s been some nastiness among progressives around Biden’s carefully doled-out public appearances, and refusal to embrace defunding police, among other issues. Many veteran pols (LBJ springs to mind) used their moderate public profiles to institute great changes in policy, however. And if all Joe Biden does is serve as calming, unifying presence to a bleeding nation, that’s OK. We have to be healthy before we can take advantage of the window of change now opening.

I’m with Joe. And not just because I have no other choice.