Time: “To understand the deliberations of the President as he weighed whether to step aside, it helps to trace the path that led him here. No sooner had Biden been elected to the Senate in 1972 than he suffered the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash. Fifteen years later, his first run for the White House ended abruptly after he delivered a debate argument pilfered from a British politician. As the plagiarism scandal snowballed, Biden’s inner circle—many of whom still occupy positions in his orbit today—urged him to exit. Even now, Biden has regrets that he heeded his advisers over his family, who urged him not to quit.”
“The experience colored Biden’s contempt for both the press and his critics. He sees the elitists in Washington working against him. To bow to the calls for him to end a storied career would be tantamount to admitting he wasn’t up for the task, and he believed he was. For Biden, it meant reliving 1987 all over again.”
“But Biden’s dismissal of the Democrats’ doubts as a Beltway phenomenon was inaccurate. Americans long had doubts about Biden’s age.”
