Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign playbook seems to be based on his previous White House efforts in the 1988 and 2008 elections: Make the incumbent Republican president the bogeyman.
Biden’s video announcement centered on President Trump and his response to the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Va., and the idea that America’s “character” had to be recaptured.
“But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation — who we are — and I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” Biden said in the video that included a montage of images from the Charlottesville rally contrasted against various patriotic scenes.
The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy…everything that has made America — America –is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. #Joe2020 https://t.co/jzaQbyTEz3
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 25, 2019
In June 9, 1987, Biden launched his first presidential campaign at the Wilmington train station in Delaware by decrying another Republican president: Ronald Reagan. “For a decade, led by Ronald Reagan, self-aggrandizement has been the full-throated cry of this society: ‘I’ve got mine, so why don’t you get yours,’ and ‘What’s in it for me?’” Biden said.
“We literally have the chance to shape the future — to put our own stamp on the face and character of America, to bend history just a little bit,” Biden said.
Biden withdrew from the race on Sept. 24, 1987 (more than a year before the general election) after it was revealed he had plagiarized a speech by British opposition leader Neil Kinnock and from a law review article during his time at the Syracuse University College of Law.
On Jan. 21, 2007, Biden announced his second run at the Democratic presidential nomination with a video declaring the need of saving American leadership after the presidency of a “divisive” George W. Bush. He said: “America’s leadership among the world’s nations is at stake. … This is no time for the divisive politics George Bush has practiced in America.”
Biden dropped out of the race on Jan. 3, 2008 after finishing in fifth place in the Iowa caucuses with less than 1% of the vote. He was later chosen by Barack Obama as his vice-presidential running mate, with advisers citing his long Washington experience, foreign policy expertise, and appeal to white, blue-collar voters.
