Joe Biden dodged a question on why he would be the best choice in the crowded Democratic field to run against President Donald Trump.
Confronted Thursday with a question about why he would be the best choice for Democrats, Biden, a former vice president and 36-year U.S. senator, avoided answering. “That’ll be for the Democrats to decide,” he said.
The dodge by the famously loquacious Biden, 76, was perhaps an attempt to avoid a repetition of the disastrous answer in former Sen. Ted Kennedy’s 1979 interview with CBS News reporter Roger Mudd about his presidential ambitions.
When Mudd asked the Massachusetts senator, who had yet to announce a presidential campaign but was clearly intending to run, why he wanted to be president, Kennedy hesitated and rambled about the country rather than talking about himself.
After a pregnant pause, Kennedy said: “Well, I’m — were I to make the announcement to run, the reasons that I would run is that I have a great belief in this country, that it is — there’s more natural resources than anywhere in the world, there’s the greatest educated population in the world, the greatest technology of any country in the world, the greatest capacity for innovation of anywhere in the world, and the greatest political system in the world.”
The meandering response was an embarrassing setback for Kennedy’s 1980 presidential bid and an indication that Kennedy had no rationale for his campaign beyond his famous name.
In his presidential announcement video Thursday, Biden spoke in generalities about President Trump and America, framing his campaign as a “battle for the soul of this nation” and warning that a second Trump term would “fundamentally and forever alter the soul” of America.
He said: “I cannot stand by and watch that happen.”
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
Biden elaborated on his White House ambitions in an interview on ABC’s “The View” Friday.
“Look, one of the reasons why I want to be president,” Biden said, noting that he did not run in 2016 due to the death of his son Beau Biden in 2015, “was that there’s so much out there, think of what this next generation is going to have an opportunity to see.
“We’re going to do everything from make fundamental change in curing cancer and Alzheimer’s and diseases, these … your kids are going to be flying across America in a matter of less than an hour and a half, we’re going to have, you know, sub-sonic air, 20 thousand miles, I mean, there’s so many things are changing.”
