BOOK OF THE WEEK: "A Promised Land" by Barack Obama -- YOUR AVERAGE, JOE!

I have not finished Barack Obama's most recent, 800-page book, but decided this post could not wait. It is too timely. It is not going to go over the whole book, just one particular part: when he picked Joe Biden as his running-mate and Vice-President. 

In a time where there is so much divisiveness and in the middle of a "once-in-a-generation" health crisis, Biden is the right person. Not long after the AP called the Presidential race for Joe Biden, I texted a friend and teammate from college who is from Dover, Delaware. She got to meet, at the time, Senator Biden as a high school student when she was helping urge fellow young people to get out and vote. 

Obama narrowed his choice down to a pair of senators from DelMarVa, Biden and Tim Kaine from Virginia. While Obama was closer to Kaine, personally, he opted to go with the elder Biden, who was 19 years older and on paper was drastically different from him. But his decision was easy, Biden provided an inside track for Obama and an opportunity to win-over more voters across the aisle in Washington. Obama needed someone who was an "insider" since he, himself, was an outsider. 

Obama described Biden as "a man without inhibitions, willing to share whatever popped into his head." I think we can all agree that is is an accurate statement. Look no further than the first Presidential debate, which resembled two bickering third-graders rather than a pair of Presidential candidates. With Donald Trump badgering him, Biden said something that 81 million Americans also wanted say, "will you shut up man." (Biden's clown comment was equally as great, too.) 

Biden is a like-able and amicable guy, who enjoyed pontificating. Sometimes he would put his foot in his mouth and his words landed him in hot water, but despite his verbal missteps, Joe was a smart man and a genuinely good man. There was nothing malicious about the way Biden went about his work and his inside knowledge of Washington, and intellect could give Obama strength he desperately needed. 

It wasn't just his inside knowledge of the workings of Washington. Obama saw in Biden, Joe's passion. Anyone who has had a learning disability knows the stigmatization that comes with it - especially if the disability is outwardly facing. And Joe's was. He had a bad stutter as a child, but worked through it so well that now you hardly notice it - except on rare occasions. 

Joe also knew what it was like to endure unimaginable tragedy multiple times in his life. He lost his first wife and daughter in a car accident that left his remaining two sons injured. He commuted back-and-forth from Washington to Delaware each night to stay with Hunter and Beau in the hospital. He knew the challenges Hunter and Beau were facing were not easy. Not only were they hurt in a car accident they had to physically recover from, but the scars of losing their mother and younger sister was something they were going to have to live with forever. 

The wounds of such a tragedy did, eventually, scar over, but they weren't totally gone. Hunter went through his own internal issues over the course of his life and in 2013 Joe's oldest and namesake, Beau, was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer. The prognosis was not good and in his final days, Beau made his dad promise him one thing, that he wouldn't run and hide. 

Beau passed away in May of 2015. With the book slowing closing on the Obama Administration, Biden had a decision to make. Does he make his third Presidential run with the past two being unsuccessful? Still mourning the loss of his son, Joe shut the door on a chance to become the Democratic nominee in 2016. It was a gut-wrenching decision because at 73 years old, he figured that may have been his last best chance. 

But then something else happened. Donald Trump. 

When the country badly needs unification and reaching across the aisle, this was Biden's time to step to the plate. His authenticity and genuine character is something the nation needs right now.